Line Honours to F16 Altered.

Hi all,

have just returned from Cowes Y.C. Marathon. The short story 15 cats raced together course aprox. 60km. The spinnaker boats consisted of Hobie Tiger, F16 Cat Rigged (Altered), F16 Cat Rigged Mosquito. Non Spinnaker boats Nacra 5.8 with wings, Taipan cat rig, Hobie 18's,17's,16's, Nacra 14sq, Hydra.

Across the line placings 1st. F16 Altered, 2nd. Hobie Tiger, 3rd. Hobie 18.

VYC yardstick Placings, 1st. & 2nd. Hobie 18's, 3rd. Nacra 14sq. 6th. F16 Altered (using A class yardstick), 7th. Hobie Tiger. Full results will follow when club emails me.

Long story. Breeze was aprox. 15kts. with gusts to 20kts. possibly more, quite shifty and patchy. A strong (usual for Westernport Bay) incoming tide. Seastate varied fom flat water with tidal eddies to ocean swell of 1m. and lots of wind chop.

Race started of the beach at Cowes Philip Island,heading upwind against tide to the Fairway buoy the start of open water (Bass Strait). Altered followed Hobie Tiger out into channel trying to gauge speed. It started to get very rough and boats in along the shore of Philip Island were getting advantage of being out of the tide. Altered decided to cut losses and leave the Tiger and Nacra 5.8 and a few others to it, tacking back to the shallow water. Sure enough by the time Altered tacked back to the shoreline many of the boats inshore were ahead. What followed was alot of guess work as the boats inshore guessed at water depth and rock outcrop sizes. After a while Altered was left with two Hobie 18's to battle for the inshore lead with the offshore boats out of site. Whoever stayed inshore longest before tacking came out in front with the positions leap frogging continuously although Altered had the edge in flat water and the 18's the edge in the rough stuff.

Finaly at the end of the beat, the Fairway buoy, some hour or so in duration the 18's had a small lead with Altered 3rd. and Hobie Tiger appearing out of the tide in 4th. Then a short reach to tight for kites and very rough, big swell and lots of chop. The 18's held the lead with the Tiger passing Altered, then at last around the Flinders buoy it was spinnaker time. The Tiger took off with crew on trap, with Altered following but not trapezing, way to rough and gusty for one up, soon were passed 18's and getting into more sheltered water. Tiger and Altered started gybing down channel with the Tiger sailing higher, crew trapezing and Altered sailing deeper not trapezing, as they got near Cowes Altered had caught up somewhat then disaster for the Tiger a capsize. Altered hit the lead but not for long, as the Tiger passed again as they dropped spinnakers rounding the Sandy Point buoy, now it was a tight reach and Altered paced the Tiger then around Tortise Head bouy, for a beat back to Cowes flat water very gusty and shifty, Altered made the most of this to round the Cowes bouy aprox. 500m. ahead.
Kites back up and heading down to Sandy Point, the Tiger again capsized, Altered then dropped it's kite having trouble staying in control, staying upright became the priority. The Tiger was soon back up and under kite again by this time conditions had settled and Altered raised the kite again. Altered had a good lead from here to the finish back at Cowes although the Tiger did close the gap some. The next boats over the line were Hobie 18's.

Altered did not have a totaly trouble free race with the spinnaker sock becoming unattached under the tramp while the kite was up. Causing it to drag in the water when going back upwind, requiring stopping and tying up and difficult hoists from then on. But other than this all went well, so things are looking good for the future.

Regards Gary.

Congratulations Gary !

Are you starting to enjoy yourself ?

I think that is quite something you did there. Going head to head solo against double handed cats in 15 to 20 knots is definately favouring the doublehanders. Of course the tiger crew was unlucky to tip it but then that is part of the game as well and they had the easier part of this aspect (being doublehanded).

I'm sure a few words were said on board that Tiger about that "bloody singlehander".

Maybe they even pushed it beyond the threshold twice because of you giving them a race. One always takes greater risks in situations like that.

Did you talk to them afterwards ?

Would be interesting to know how they felt. Surely it is a sight to be racing against a singlehander with spi in these conditions and to be unable to pull away. I personally have great respect for your achievement here, this is truly something; you are showing us how it is done.

Respect !

Wouter

Good stuff, congrats!!

Bump!

Hi Wouter,

Yes I am starting to enjoy myself, can't wait to tune up Altered. She is starting to show some potential in bursts, if I can develop that speed consistently I will be happy.

I did speak to the guys off the Tiger before and after race. Before race they were telling me that the Tiger they were on was better than the borrowed Tigers they had raced previously, I had raced against them on the F16 Mosquito a couple of times.

After the race they said they had hit kelp (large seaweed) which had knocked their rudders up, causing them to turn upwind and capsize. Don't recall any coment about F16 singlehanded speed.

The two Hobie 18's I raced upwind with were crews I had met before also. They are now sailing faster after competing in recent world titles and did well, although one did say they were dismasted during series.

Regards Gary.

Hi Gary,
Good to see two things : the boat is handling the heavy stuff, and you`re having fun !
You raised a point I`ve had a question on for a while : the Hobie 18`s are still not slow boats when well-sailed. I know this is off-post, so please forgive me if I`m hijacking your thread. But I wonder how a Hobie 18 with spinnaker would go up against a Tiger ? Would cost a whole lot less to get going. I don`t know if you could race it as a F18 though. Any thoughts ?

Steve, I had heard from one of the dealers in aus that ther 18 doesn't have adequate buoyancy to run F18 gear, whether that s overall buoyancy or just distribution of buoyancy I'm not sure. But yes it would be a cheap way of getting into f18 if it worked.

Gary,
you mentioned using the A class yardstick, I've been asking about F16 handicaps before but only got references to some portsmouth or texel thingos that make no sense to me. Is our VYC not yet giving a rating due to lack of data? Did you pick the Aclass rating as a guide or did the RC?

Cheers Phil

Hi Phil,
Thanks for feedback on the Hobie 18. Just from Gary`s post it appears that a well-sailed one is not far off his pace upwind, and his pace is not far off Hobie Tiger`s, but all things considered the sailors would all have to be identical in skill before any conclusion can be drawn. If you could add a kite to the TheMightyHobie18 that works for that boat it would be faster than it is. Doesn`t have to be full-F18 spec, could be smaller if the bows won`t hold up full F18 sail areas. Would make a cheap way to go Formula sailing, but I`m sure the F18 class wouldn`t allow it, I`m sure the TheMightyHobie18 jib is oversize in their class rules. (And Hobie dealers would panic - Imagine all those cheap used TheMightyHobie18`s being resurrected to F18 specs, would dent their sales figures a bit ) MAybe that`s why a dealer told you it won`t hold up.

Back to Gary, since he hasn`t given you an answer yet, I think he used the A-class rating based on the fact that, on ISAf / Texel, F16 solo is rated equal or very close to A-class, while F16 sloop is rated equal to F18. So it`s easy to convert that to any handicapping system you might be using, use it as a benchmark until you have some results and correct it out if needs be after a few regattas.
I think there is a little resisitance from US sailors to have their F16`s rated equal to F18, they are enjoying a rating that allows them to win, why should they want it to change !

Steve

Just for fun I gave Gina and Matt a F18 USPN rating in the Hagar race of last weekend

In such a case they have a corrected time of 4 hours 59 min and 48 sec and they will still correct out over the I-20's and F18's.

They are then beaten on corrected time by the H16 and the two totally revamped rating beaters, the singlehanded nacra 5.2 and Nacra 5.5 with spi additions, larger mainsails and in one case with jib as well.

So in this case it shows even more that something happened with the H16 as that crew will then have beaten all other crews (and all spinnaker boats) by 30 minutes or so which is a really large margin even for a distance race that lasted about 3 hours and 15 minutes.

But back to the topic the point to take away is that also the Hagar race results do not provide a basis that F16's can NOT race others of an F18 rating. Either that or Gina and Matt proof that they are just far better sailors even in their second sail on the new boat.

But as I say; just for fun, as the Hagar fleet is really too small to base any hard conclusions upon. nevertheless we have several 10th's of such race result by now. If anything, a trend can be spotted.

Wouter

Been doing a little digging into A class ratings and under SCHRS all boats are measured and then given their own rating. As the boats are different shapes (varying waterline lengths for one, Aspect ratio for two) they get different ratings. however IIRC they are all ending up between 0.98 and 1.00.

If you really want to have some fun that you must go the the A-cat forums and point this out to them. You will get a roar of protests, that the A's can sail to those ratings. You won't hear the end of it. If you really want to make friends than you should protest A-cats under Texel or ISAF for using to slow a rating. It is a pretty wide spread trick to up it one or two points. And sometimes the RC's and rating committees are helping a bit as well. For example the A-cats are the only boxrule class on which the class rating is calculation on a few measured boats instead of class rules. If you use class rules than the rating. F18 on the other are assigned a number on their maximum class limits. Rating the A's fairly is a problem and the RC's know it. I've seen A-cats listed at 102 while 99 would have been the number given by the formula.

It was actually one of the reason why I designed and implemented the NMBR system. To (also) solve this A-cat problem.

101-102 (Texel) and 100-101 (ISAF) are more fair to the A-cats then the true theoretical values produced by the formulae.

Wouter

SCHRS rating spread sheet says "refer to measurement certificate"

The A Class should issue a measurement certificate. This should then be taken to a registered SCHRS measurer and then the SCHRS mesurement taken and then a number issued for that boat.

This is what should happen.

Hi Phil,

use of Aclass VYC yardstick for F16 oneup was my suggestion to race controler. VYC will not give rating for F16HP till we have some reults. It was my understanding that f16HP oneup should be similar speed to Aclass and knowing that most A's have trouble sailing to Glen's? Yardstick I thought it would be safe starting point, nobody could argue it was to easy. Remember VYC is performance based yardstick. At this stage I am not worried about handicap. Just want to race faster boats to try to tune up Altered, see what oneup can do at front of fleet.

My understanding on Hobie 18's with kite is, they have used them but had some problems with breakages at bow. Don't know what. Interesting part of conversation after race with 18's was that top Oz 16's would probably have beaten them to windward especialy in flatter water.

Regards Gary.

Gary ,

Just discovered this post and wanted to convey my admiration for your tenacity ; truly inspirational stuff ! Would you consider renaming the boat Sea Biscuit ?

Paul

Thanks STeve and Gary for that input, may be some time before VYC catches up then.
So I'll assume that if the cat rig is in line with A Class and Sloop is inline with F18 then the two different f16s will actually not be racing against each other at regatta'a for line honors. Is this the planned situation?

Phil

When looking at the rating systems we see

Texel F18 = 102 , A-cat = 100 , F16 (2-up) = 102 , F16 (1-up) = 101
ISAF goes down the same as Texel

VYC F18 = 70.00, A-cat = 71.00, F16 (2-up) = still waiting F16 (1-up) = still waiting

So I say there is thrightingly little difference between the ratings for the A's and the F18's. If F16 in either mode is comparable to both then we can just as well race in mixed F16 fleets.

Also we know how the Taipan cat-rig and Taipan sloop measured up against each other on the water. So when we drafted the F16 rules we moved some sailarea from the jib to the mainsail thus closing the gap that existed between the cat-rigged version and the sloop version. We also added some extra width. This closed the gap to the F18's and A-cats respectively.

From the data we have now it appears that these actions had the desired effect. When sailed by equal skilled crews the 2-up and 1-up version appear to be very comparable around the course.

I would like to make one point though. I never understood the hassle that is made over having all the water to yourself as a class or even as a configuration (2-up vs 1-up). The more boats you race the greater the fun. What is the point of splitting a fleet in 2 different starts ? Especially if a fleet is small. Why not start everybody together, race them all together and regard boats getting in the way as an extra obstacle that will discriminated the better sailors from the weaker ones. In the end all crews are faced with the same situation. The smart ones know when duck or tack away. Compare it too a marathon on tarmac and a marathon cross country. But are races and all must negociated the additional obstacles in the latter the best. How is this unfair ? Or even less enjoyable.

I say throw them in together and have everybody race everybody. In case of the F16 the performance difference between both looks to be to small to be significant.

Ohh before I forget. We do this sport for spare time enjoyment, we're not racing for sheep stations.

At least in NL we will group both modes together and the first over the line wins the bragging rights AND free beer over the BBQ afterwards. Will give us something to talk about over dinner !

Wouter

We used to run the TheMightyHobie18's with cut down i14 kites before the tigers came along. The boat was definatly faster than a stock TheMightyHobie18 but it also requried a bow spreader bar which made for some ugly nose dives. All in all it was a bit of a pig compared to virtually any modern F18.

Michael

The biggest problem with the TheMightyHobie18 is that it fundamentally doesn't comply with F18 rules. As somebody else mentioned, the jib is *way* too big. Also the beams on a F18 must be straight (allow up to 15mm?? pre-camber) and thirdly I suspect the dagger boards will be too heavy.

Unfortunatly you would find yourself more or less with pair of hulls and maybe a mast (would have to check if the rigging points of the mast complied to F18) and not much else.

A well sailed TheMightyHobie18 can stay in touch with a F18 upwind in some conditions but it is very much like pushing water up hill in most situations.

Michael

When the F18 class first showed up here in the USA, I was sailing a Nacra 5.5 Sloop. Since the boat met all the measurements, I figured I could race it with the F18's if I added the class size spinnaker. The US F18 class changed the International Rules to only allow boats that came from the factory as F18's, ie. only the Hobie Tiger and Nacra F18.

I asked what if I were to buy the Nacra F18 sails and put them on my 5.5, they said NO, You must buy a new boat from the factory! So I sold it.

It was a great boat but the class Mafia (mostly dealers) was about selling new boats, not allowing racing on modified older boats.

Since then I've owned the Bimare F18HT and the Inter 20. Both are great boats and very fast, both require excellent crew if you are to finish well in big wind.

Then I ruptured a disc in my back and had to have surgery. No sailing for 6 months. The doctor said "You had better re-evaluate what you have been doing to have caused this..." Well, that Inter 20 does weigh over 400lbs. and I was lifing it onto the trailer alone, pulling it up the beach alone, stuff like that, all the time.

When I can sail again, I'm thinking about something as light as possible, spinnaker of course, that has two traps for me and the kids, (we live on a lake) but that I can race alone...seems the F16 is the only boat that fits those requirements.

Lucky for me that Matt McDonald is only two hours away, now building the Blade in the US. I will try and get a test drive sometime this spring. Most of the people sailing F16 in Florida are actually sailing Tai Pan 4.9's...and they are fast. Matt and a couple others here will be sailing the Blade by this summer. Could be some good F16 racing comming soon.

Hey Timbo!!

Glad you are considering the BLade. I am getting one as well, maybe two more weeks for me. Anyway, would you mind if I added you to the email list? Send me a private message or just reply here, and I will add you to my local f16 emailing list.

Robi

Robie, you can email me at: tbohan at strato dot net. Thanks...(I used to live in Plantation, near PPines.)