Activity

Hi everybody,

I was thinking how quiet the forum have gone compared to earlier, so I went and did some very rough statistics. I estimated the number of threads on the F16 forum here each year. I spent only 5 minutes on this so there are some significant uncertainties here..

However, I think it is very clear that activity have dropped significantly.. Looks like discussions and interest on the forum peaked in 2007 and have dropped since.



Now why is that? I have some opinions but would like to hear others opinions.

E.g. Hans Klok just announced three championship bids for the europeans next year. No replies, no discussion, no interest..

I'm not thinking much about sailing right now.

I'm thinking that back in 2007, the class was growing/expanding with several new designs coming to market?

And maybe there was some extra buzz with the Alter Cup being sailed on a F16, and the US Economy had not fully hit bottom (has it yet?) or at least not gone as low as it is today, so perhaps there was more interest from more people, (people with jobs), than there is in 2011?

And on the European Championship input...well...most of the people on this board are in the US...?

Hi Tim,

by looking at those old threads, most traffic came from the southern hemisphere and europe. The US started to generate real traffic in 2005 I would say.

The class is still growing in the number of boats. But activity on this forum is way down.

Rolf, forum activity is down across all of the forums (I suspect). It may be that people have grown bored with the pointless sh!t storms that appeared to be the norm for a while (and yes I was very much a part of that).

I wouldn't be hasty to draw any conclusions related to forum activity and class interested. For example the F18 forum has to be one of the least active on this site yet class interest and numbers are up, and the same thing can be said for the F16 class. It could be more people are doing it instead of just talking about it :-)

I hope you are right David. Less talk, more sailing.

I still do wonder though why activity have dropped like it has.

I was curious about a F16 based tri. A designer sent me this.

Blasphemy and vandalism!

my idea was a quick conversion from cat to tri for solo, open water sailing. Sort of two boats in one.

Go make a new thread (so we can count +1 threads) with your unrightable vandal boat

That's why there's no activity...

What? Explain please.

Rolf,
I think the F16 class was still unknown in the beginning and a lot of questions came on what the class was by people googling.
I think today the class is more know and less questions might occur?

The questions should come from leisure or racers looking for trim questions, etc. but I don't think the F16 is like the F18 on that topic, so less questions are posed.

And ofcourse some of the die hard posters have left or are busy with other stuff at the moment.

Gill

That is not how I remember it from "back then" and not what I found when counting threads today. Might be wrong of course.

I also think the now absent "die hard" posters make a significant difference.

How does your statistics correlate to the direct involvement of Wouter?....Love him or hate him he interjected the F16 concept in any and every topic that came up on the multitude of Catsailor forums. No one else has carried on that level of passion for the F16 class.

It is funny that no one seems to want to mention his name....kind of like saying beetle juice three times would make him appear...WOUTER...WOUTER...WOUTER...ha!

I think the Wouter effect is quite significant

I like Wouter!

I've been working ~80hrs a week since I got back from Maryland. That's my excuse.

It has been really dull around here.

We dont need no excuses, we need high quality activity

I've never brought brought high quality activity to the table. lol

On the positive side, I think since F16s are more accepted in the overall world of catsailing that a lot of posts might be made on the main forum, not in the relative "shelter" (or whatever) of the F16 forum. I know I have posted things in the F16 forum in the past knowing that they will get a more supportive view.
flame away

Where's Wooter?
Besides all of his annoyingly successful F16 promotions he could always come up with some totally provocative political gaff when the board got quiet. Sigh....those were the days...

The class made it perfectly clear that if you did not own a boat... shut the hell up and leave us alone! You guys were special! It's a fine line between your private ghetto and debating in the general discussion forum.

So... you went off and created a SECOND separate forum to make your point and regulate the debate. (Your other option was to create a mailing list where the class pushed info out to owners).

Since those interested in sailing want the class to succeed despite your best efforts, we tune in on occasion and volunteer our two cents. (Hell... one of us went out and bought a Taipan)

Forums require content.... Content is generated by the sailors: Counting on one guy... (wouter) will burn him up.

You should try...
Generating a discussion on a schedule with the goal of getting critical mass at events.

If you don't want to attend a national event... figure it out before the organizer gets screwed.

Sailing event reports.... (hmmm how about the NA report) eg... Why I should not miss the event next year. If I don't own a boat... why should I get one?
Upcoming Sailing events.... (anticipation..)
The people in the class and what they are doing sailing wise
Class rule changes.... (what do you do about the radio transmission debate... see A class and F18) Should there be a class min weight.
Design innovations and new boats coming out. Why is the Nacra better or worse then the viper?

How to rig your boat and other customization tweaks?

God forbid any one post some pictures of sails with some lines on them showing draft positions.... and what to look for in a fresh sail versus a dead sail.

Gee... that sounds like what Wouter did!... it's called class building.

Or you can take the low energy road that the F18's follow.

Mark,

at least you are good for the activity count, I'll give you that.

I put him on ignore some time back. You're getting sucked into the "I hate F16s" **** storm.

No no, I think he means well.

Rolf,

Your graph is number of threads. Wouldn't number of posts be a better indicator of activity? Just mention weight and that thread is good for another 20 posts. In the pre-2007 years, I do not believe that issue was so heatedly debated.

I agree. I did not find a good way to count number of posts however.
I do think number of threads is a fair indication of activity also.

Guilty as charged. The results are posted at Regatta Tech. Congrats to Robbi Daniel & Enrique Rodriquez as this year's champions.

In summary, tropical storm Lee did a real number on the event and was part of the wettest September on record for Maryland. The storm stalled in the Ohio Valley and dumped several inches of rain the 5 days leading up to the event and continued to influence the weather during event with little wind, scattered showers, and mostly cloudy skies. As a result, the staging area was thoroughly soaked and the racers spent a couple hours each day waiting for the wind to lift. Each day, the RC push 1 race through. We were considering on deciding the championship by staging a mud sliding competition but figured Squid-Pig (what's in a name) would have an unfair advantage and we would have to hear about until 2012.

The USF16 Association held it's annual meeting after Saturday's dinner. Minutes are forthcoming but the major items included introducing Eric Witte as the interim president, coordinating the next elections, discussion on expanding the association, and accepting St. Andrews Bay YC's bid to host the 2012 USF16 Nationals in October 2012.

To add insult to injury, originally scheduled dates for the following weekend had perfect racing conditions.

I know my own visits/posts to the board went way down once I learned how to sail the boat. Not that I know everything by any means, but when you get to the finer points, its harder to express and learn in a forum.

Also, those old posts are a good source of information if you do a search. Many topics are already covered, so there is no need for a new thread.

Also, in my own club, most of the new F16 people are converts from other/larger boats, so they are already well along the learning curve.

Finally, just my .02 on the occasional arguments going on in this forum...it's part of the reason I joined the class and bought a F16. After reading the forum for a while, I thought "these guys are just ornery enough to make this F16 thing happen...."