F16 Class Philosophy and Membership

As discussed in the other thread, and evident to many of us:-
We need people out showing their boats off at regattas. That is what is behind the current drive to include sailing at a regatta as part of the membership qualification.

Showing the F16 boats off "in force" at regattas will help draw people into the class and make it better for all.

I think we all know the above statement to be true.

However I wonder with todays presssures on both families and individuals, will we really get any more people out and about with their boats by threatenng them with regard to eligability of class membership, or will we be just limitting the class's potential growth by turning people away because they can not travel, or alternatively, pissing them off because they are being asked to jump through hoops.

From the very beginning we have promoted "inclusiveness"
as a corner stone of the F16 class's foundation.
This stance has had us inviting all classes of boats that can get themselves inside the box rule to come and sail with us.
So why should we discriminate against the sailors when it comes to membership.

I have always thought the all inclusive attitude to be a great assett to the F16 class and something that should be protected.

Following some consideration regarding memebership qualification and reasoning for it and discussions with Wouter I have come to the conclusion that we should not be limitting memebership to people that travel or even people that race as that would go against the basic "inclusiveness" principal.

Sure, I'd like to see people racing and even travelling to regattas but I would also like to see people involved that are enthused about the concept of one day owning an F16, or people that enjoy hanging around the F16 class for social reasons. Or people that just want an F16 to tinker with and work out better ways of doing things. All the time we stand the opportunity for the infectious level of their enthusiasm to rub off onto others.

Anyone with an interest in the class should be invited to join and be encouraged to be involved at whatever level with which they feel most comfortable.

We must strive to encourage participation at all levels.

Who gets to vote on what is seconadry to the principal of including whoever wants to be involved in spreading the word and building the class. It matters not if they are racing at big regattas, holding up the F16 flag at their local club or socialising around F16 gossip in their local pub. As a matter of principal we should welcome them all.

Now to make this all happen we need to take a careful look at how we present and deliver the F16 Class to each and every person. No matter how they choose to be involved.

It is up to us to make it so people want to be in our corner preaching the F16 word.

Just the way I see it.

Regards,
Phill

Phill,

I saw the full page of text and though it was Wouter posting.

I fully agree with this though. The F16 as a class is fully in its infancy. We have a lot of momentum (especially in the US) to overcome before people will look at it as a recognized class of racing.

I see this happening in a couple of phases.

1) Lock in the class rules. For better or for worse, it is done and this is how we are organizing the class. Continued changes keep people from commiting, as they are sitting back and waiting to see where it all falls out.
2) All remaining efforts dirrected towards growing the class. If someone is willing to commit to owning an F16 there is no reason they should not be able to become a member of the organization if they wish. The first F16 sold to a guy living in the boonies of South Dakota may have a 12+ hr drive just to get to another F16 owner and that is still not enough to make a valid race, but he may be the emmisary that sells the concept and in a couple of years there is a large active fleet in the state.

Promotion of events and accolades heaped on those who attend and more importantly host organized F16 functions has to continue, because this concept while fun to sail is in reality a performance boat designed for racing, not a beat around day sailer for the novice. Promotion should not come at the expense of excluding any form of participation.

IMHO

Matt

only 12 hours away!!! sheesh that is close.. Think Im roughly 36 hours non stop driving away from the nearest F16

I agree with this point of view. You cannot change the world by making rules or structures. That is not to say that you don't need any structure at all. Structures or rules should be helpful but cannot enforce our goals, you should do with a minimum of rules if possible I would say. The product itself should generate enthousiasm and the urge to compete with others. Some do that on their own club. I for instance can sail every week a race on my club (2 miles from my house) with about thirty or fourty cats as competitors. Other places on the planet have other circumstances and other practices. Indeed, we should strive for inclusiveness.
I for myself think that when people will discover that you are not obliged to race a heavy "truck" but that there are also possibilities to do it on lighter "state-ot-the-art" crafts (that can be sailed competitive with the older generation of heavy aircraft-carriers)will generate enthousiasm for our class.
I thank the people who had the vision to develop this idea into the F16 concept and design some fine boats. The ruling monopolists would never have done that.

What is a monopolist?

As a new F16 member, I am perhaps not particularly qualified to comment on the rules for membership. However, if my view is of interest, I believe that any class that is just starting out (and 4 years on that is where F16 still is) needs to foster members and friends wherever it can. To generate an air of discrimination or exclusivity by limiting membership to only those who race in largish fleets is counterproductive. This is for all the reasons outlined above by others plus it will discriminate against those who view the boat for what it really is; an easily sailed, lightweight, exciting, speed machine.

Although a racer at heart myself, since getting my Stealth I have been more than impressed with how easy the boat is to sail with a light, novice crew (my wife on one occasion, and my 12 year old son 3 times) and above all how much FUN just going for a blast was.

In just two weeks we have already generated a lot of interest at our club amongst family sailors and if I was to honour every request I have had for a trial sail "when you've got a chance", I'd never get any sailing or racing done for myself.

These people are unlikely to be the sort to go big fleet or regatta racing but would be solid club sailors - as the rules stand they could be excluded from membership. Perhaps two classes of membership -voting and non-voting? Whatever the majority decide to be the criteria for membership is OK by me, but I know from past experience that many people just like to feel that they 'belong' to the association of the class of boat they sail without being activists. To get their regular newsletters, ballots or special 'exclusive' offers etc.

Here's looking forward to the all-inclusive F16 class!

monopolist
I have only a cheap dictionary with not too many words, so I guessed that this would be an English word.
To make a long story short I meant Hobie and Nacra who in fact have a monopoly. They dictate the market and have no interest in innovation which would mean they should have to invest in more complicated production methods or more expensive labor.

You're right. It is a word. I had just never heard it before and I didn't make the connection to monopoly. I thought maybe you were referring somehow to monohull sailors, since they are the ones who rule the sailing establishment.

I had never thought of Hobie Cat and Performance as being monopolies -- I always thought of them as survivors.

Well the current proposal Wouter made on what qualifies you to be a voting member probably goes back to a private post I made to him some time ago in which I proposed that he formalises the membership criteria, in order to prevent the unnecessary long-winded discussions that occurred on the Forum about how the F16 class should be run, who can vote on the rules etc, mostly started by inquisitive folks who were not at the time involved in the class, and in my mind are still not. Some of these discussions led others to believe the class was disorganised (because it did not have a Democratically elected president and committee that most US sailors are comfortable with), that it did not "allow" sailors to form their own local associations even if they wanted to (Wouter said go ahead, knock yourselves out, do what makes you happy, he`s just not doing it for you). I find it ridiculous that some folks believe they should have a say in matters regarding a class that they are not yet members of. I also believe ownership of an F16 compliant boat is not enough. It`s like saying you want to join an archery association, go to their meetings and vote on how they run themselves, because you have a bow and quiver of arrows somewhere in the attic under a rolled-up carpet collecting dust, which you have absolutely no intention of using. This is why most yacht clubs and boat classes struggle to grow and change for the better, they are dictated to by voting members who turn up at the club exactly once a year, at the AGM, just to have their say.
Here is an example of how being fully-inclusive can harm if not kill off this class before it even gets going : Take the Australian situation, where the Taipan could form the strongest seat of F16 sailing in the world. Now give every Taipan owner the right to vote on F16 issues(I think there are about 200 of them), even though they don`t even own a spinnaker (their boat is still fully F16 compliant under the rules, no rule says the boat MUST be fitted with a spinnaker !). They could vote against any proposal that would allow development in any way, since they percieve that this would allow other boats to be built that could be faster than they are, which would not suit them. This in my mind would be detrimental to the rest of the boat-owners in this class, since you can count the Taipan sailors in Australia who have supported F16 in any way over the last 4 years on one hand. Having an involvement-based membership system prevents this kind of problem.
After all, why would you want to be a member of an association that is there to promote a class of RACING boats if you have no intention of racing them ? If you just like the boat because of it`s design, get one by all means and go sailing. If you never race it as an F16 then don`t worry yourself over whether the class rules change from time to time, or whether your boat complies with them or not. In fact, don`t even worry yourself whether an F16 organisation even exists or not. If you own a Blade or Taipan or Stealth or whatever, keeping it class-legal to it`s own class rules will pretty much ensure that it is F16 class legal as well, since the F16 authority would never change the rules in such a way that any of the presently included classes would become outlawed,(would they ???) as that would be suicidal in my opinion.
I agree with being inclusive, but we must be careful to include those with a common goal ie that of promoting the F16 class. Perhaps allowing club-races to count would help those who can`t travel, or even having a membership application form in which you describe how you intend helping the F16 class to grow should you be granted membership if you don`t intend to race at all. Your membership application could then be accepted or rejected based on this, and could even be revoked if you don`t deliver on your promise, or show that you have at least made an attempt. Maybe my ideas are a little controversial, feel free to disagree.

Steve

Steve,
When we bought our Taipan 4.9 three or four years ago, one of the reasons was that we thought we (or at least Rick) would be able to race it in the F16 class.

It did not come with a spinnaker and pole, etc. We were told that in order to be an F16 we had to have the spinnaker. So we bought the whole spinnaker rig after the fact.

Are you saying it is NOT required to have a spinnaker rig for the boat in order to be F16 compliant and that you can still be a member of the class and have a vote if you don't have a spinnaker?

And is that why those 200 Taipan 4.9's in Australia are able to be F16 class members and be able to vote, even if they have not modified to include spinnakers?

This is a bit disconcerting or consternating or something like that.

The rules "seem" to say the boat is required to have a main, jib and spinnaker for double-handed racing and a main and spinnaker for single-handed racing. They also say you don't necessarily have to USE all the sails, in either configuration, when racing.

I took the latter caveat to be just for safety reasons or personal preference given the sailing conditions.

So now it turns out that we did NOT have to buy that spinnaker?

Mary, I think the rules you quoted are pretty clear. You do not have to have any sails to be F16 compliant. OTOH, if you're hoping to be competitive, then you would want to have all the sails, including a spinnaker.

If your objective was to sail F16, then I'm sure you did the right thing.

Mark.

Well, then, the rules are not clear at all. I read them to say you have to have those sails in order to be an F16 but you don't necessarily have to use them all when racing. And that latter is true, of course about any racing class. With any class you can reduce sail, you can reef, you can furl, you can race under bare poles, if you want to. That is totally separate from the sail configuration(s) that defines that class.

P.S. Maybe that third rule, 1.11.3, should just be eliminated as being unnecessary and self-evident.

You make an interesting point Mary. I had not read the rules that way, and I suspect most others would not either (though I may just be expressing my own bias there).

Under you're interpretation, would you have to have the sails on the boat (but not rigged, e.g. in a bag on the tramp) in order to race? Can 1.11.3 reasonably be taken to mean that? Or would you say that you just have to own those sails even if they're not on the boat?

I guess this is a point where 2.4.1 applies .

Mark.

Yes, I would definitely interpret the rules to say that those are the sails you have to have on the boat, along with the rigging to use them.

The spinnaker is the primary feature that distinguishes the F16 class from some of the subsidiary one-design classes under its umbrella.

But Wouter is the rules person, so he should be the one to answer the question and interpret the existing rules.

Yes, I am the guy who should give intepretation on the rules after consulting the related officials and class. However in this case I will stay silent till Phill Brander has completed his membership proposal/project. It will not be good to intepretate the sailplan rules vs membership at this stage and thus run in the wheels of Phill.

So sorry guys no quick answer this time.

On one thing Mark is right though. If you want to be competitive then you really must have a spinnaker. Their is simply no way one can stay with the pack when the pack is using a spi and you are not.

Oops, sorry that was my personal interpretation of the rules. I assumed if I wanted to sail 2-up without the jib, I would be allowed to do so, and would be able to leave it and the sheets, blocks etc in the trailerbox, rather than stuff it in a pocket so it was "part of the boat". As long as I comply with all other class rules ie min. weight etc (after removing jib & blocks), who would object ? My understanding of the rules is that they would allow you to design & build a uni-rig boat if that`s what you want, as long as it fits the box-rule and complies with all other rules. If it`s slower than the sloop configuration 2-up, well then that`s what you chose. So my interpretation is that the rig is limited to mainsail, jib & spinnaker, but you don`t have to have all of these if you think you`ll be competitive without either, as long as you understand that you`ll be competing against others who do have all 3 sails, and are likely to be lapping you. Likewise I`d have assumed that if you chose to sail without spinnaker, you could leave all the paraphernalia associated with it on the beach, as long as you are min. weight without this kit, and are prepared to go downwind slowly, and attempt to make the cut-off time in each race. Not much fun either way.

What I was getting at, Mary, is that I believe it would be undesirable to have members who are not sailing their boats and, in fact, racing them, as full F16`s ie with a spinnaker, as this is the intent of the class :

From the "short description" on the class web-site :
"The "Formula 16" is a controlled multi-manufacturer development formula class. A class for 5 mtr. (16,4 ft.) long High Performance and asymmetric spinnaker equipped beach catamarans.

It regulates both 2-up (skipper and crew) and 1-up (solo) regatta sailing with an asymmetric spinnaker."

I think it`s fairly clear that the INTENT of the class is that it is there to regulate & promote "regatta sailing" (ie RACING) and that boats SHOULD be spinnaker-equipped.

Just as the rules stipulate that the maximum length is 5m, it allows you to enter a 14ft boat if you think that it will be competitive, of course "first in wins", so best be sure of your boat`s capabilities before making an idiot of yourself. Likewise if you choose to leave your mainsail on the beach and can win races, I`ll crew for you anyday !
The Mosquito class is a good case study : 4,9m long, mast is 7,3m (ie 1,2m shorter !), our spinnaker is 4,5sqm LESS than the F16 class allows. Technically speaking the boat is way under spec and complies with all F16 rules except min. weight, for which we have applied for dispensation (Australian boats only, SA boats are on min. weight).
On paper we are slower than full F16 but where we sail I`d rather be sailing on the edge on my Mozzie than cartwheeling all over the ocean on a Taipan or Blade. (Your rating means nothing when you`re upside-down)

As I said, my interpretation may be wrong, just have to wait for Wouter to get back to us on this one, Apology for leading you astray..

Steve

My interpretations:
If you are sailing with two people on the boat, you would be required to have all three sails on the boat -- main, jib and spinnaker (including spinnaker pole), whether you use all or any of them.

If you are sailing single-handed, you would be required to have main and spinnaker on the boat (whether you use them or not) and would be required to NOT have a jib on the boat.

P.S. I am only giving my interpretations so Wouter and others can figure out how to clarify things, and not because I think my interpretations are right.

I think both Phill and Steve have made very reasonable, though different, points. If I had to choose between them, I would probably lean towards Phill's argument. However I'm more inclined to look for a solution that meets as many reasonable objectives as possible.

At this point it's appropriate to say once more that I am not currently an F16 owner, only an interested observer, so make of this what you will, and please by all means ignore me if you wish...

As far as voting eligibility is concerned (which may be a different issue from membership per se), I like the idea that people who vote are active F16 racers. Ultimately, the only purpose of the rules, I think, is to facilitate racing, so I don't know why it would make sense for people who aren't racing as F16 to be interested in, let along responsble for, changing the rules.

However I think adding an additional requirement (e.g. regatta size) that is really aimed at getting people to go the extra mile (literally!) specifically to actively promote the class is not necessarily the best way, and perhaps not even a good way, to get the maximum number of people enthused about the class. And as I've said before, it's difficult to ensure geographical equity in the way such a requirement is imposed.

I would be quite comfortable with a situation in which voting members are restricted to those who have shown that they are genuine F16 sailors by sailing N races as F16 in the past year (either straight up in a designated F16 fleet or off an F16 handicap in a mixed fleet). I would not exclude club races nor place any restriction on how many boats they have sailed against. On the other hand, unlike the original proposal, I would be inclined to make N > 1.

However, as Phill said to start with, this should all be about more than voting, and if the class wanted to define membership and voting as separate issues (e.g. to enable people to sign up for newsletters and other things as John Alani mentioned) I think that would be absolutely fine. And as Matt said, the rules really should be fixed for a good long period anyway to help get this thing rolling.

So although the membership/voting issue is important, and worth debating, the more pressing issue is how to help people feel connected with the community. That's a separate discussion.

Mark.

I go with what Phill says. I do not think you should have to be in a big event to be a F16 member. I do think you should own a F16. (not a sloop sailed Taipan) If you want to have a qualifier that to vote on F16 rules you have to have sailed in a race or two - that is fine with me. Though I doubt a sailor that hasn't raced once the whole year is going to worry about voting on racing issues. If it becomes a problem make it a rule next year.

On a different subject - I wish there was a seperate forum where all the verbal sparring could be conducted so that people interested in the boat could come here and only read threads about racing, performance, comparisons of F18 to F16, etc - but not have to sift through "why the class rules are different than other classes" - why our class spokesman was not elected, etc. To a newcomer these discussions comes off as negative and make people think twice whether this is an organization they wish to be part of.

Finally I don't think personal attacks should be tolerated. If a thread or message attacks a person instead of the issue, than it should be removed.

Catsailor.com (thanks Mary and Rick) is one of the first places people go to find information on catsailing and to catch the "stoke". To promote sailing we should make sure we keep our posts "above board". F16 is competing with F18, F18HT, A cats, etc for potential new sailors. I would really hate to lose a prospective new sailor because they got turned off by a discussion.

Chuck

I have been following this class' growth since it was F-16 HT.
I have only included my thoughts, perhaps a half dozen times.
My original interested was due to this class’ homebuilder potential.

As far as the exact language of the membership, and how it is interpreted, I think that the most important and helpful section in the rules is the following:

1.1.1 In case of doubt, the intention of the rule makers which is referred to as the spirit of the rule, shall take precedence over the letter of the rule.

This gives all interested parties lots of room to work with any language. Being that through this forum, all vocal parties ARE the rule makers.


I would like to contact anyone interested in this class, located in Florida to contact me via Private E-mail:
Rmatos@easternyachts.net

I would like to arrange a meeting of some sort, probably lots of b/s and beer but maybee we can put a race together.

You know it looks as if this forum system allows multiple forums to be grouped together. Notice how "Formula 16 High Performance" is listed under "Formula 16 High Tech". So it's probably feasible to have a separate rules forum under the F16 umbrella (though that HT name should probably be updated).

Let me know when you want to take the Blade out for a test drive. I know you are interested in building one. I am located in Pembroke Pines, that was what? maybe 45mins north of you? The boat is stored in Opalocka, that is what? 30 mins north of you, and I go sailing at Key Biscayne, what is that? 15 mins north of you? LOL

Anyway Ricky, for the next couple of weeks, I will go under the knife for some surgery but after that I am all game!

I also sent you an email.

Robi

Robi,

Thanks for the E-Mail, Good luck.

Mark,

Why should there be a seperate forum?
A looooooooong time ago it was decided, on this forum, to name the class hp instead of ht because we wanted to stay away from the high costs and exotic materials associated with the ht.

Name issue.

it has been requested several times that the name be changed but I think Rick encounters a technical problem that prevents a change. Currently I dare not risk losing all the posts or something so I do not seek to have is "updated" anymore.

Abusive posts.

That happened a few times, however I do not administrator rights to this forum, only Rick has. I requested to have the ability to delete truly abusive posts but never really have gotten a reply. I also use the "contact administrator" function of this forum when I encounter a really abusive post (like King Weezy of Sam Evans); so it is Ricks decision wether a post stays or not.

Wouter

Mary,

I'm not going to comment yet on how these rules need to be intepretate with respect to being a member of the F16 class or not. But I'm not going to force a crew to strapped a ripped jib to there trampoline just to satisfy these rule. Same with respect to a bend spi pole. Nor am I going to prevent a crew from participating because they were unlucky to leave their jib or spi at home.

The most basic spirit of the rule is that any deviation from what is allowed as a max may no constitude an unfair increase in overall performance relative to other maximized F16's. Now we know quite well by now that anybody racing without a jib on a otherwise full compliant boat does NOT any advantage over a fully rigged sloop F16. If anything it has a noticeable disadvantage. The higher pointing simply does not make up for the loss of drive. Same for not having a spi pole and therefor not having a spi. Sure on the first upwind leg the pole less boat will have a slight advantage but after that it is "bye-bye baby" ! It will get creamed on the downwind legs and to such an extend that no amount of upwing advantage can overcome that. Ask the A-cat guys about how that feels.

I wasn't commenting on whether there should be, only that it appears to be technically possible to have more than one forum under the F16 umbrella. Chuck mentioned that he found the rules discussions rather tedious and would prefer if there was a way he could just read posts that are actually about sailing F16s. If there were a demand, it looks like it can be done while still keeping all the F16 stuff together. Personally, I enjoy reading everything, but I can certainly understand the feelings of those with less arcane interests.



My point precisely. Yet the HT name is still on the site as the name of the forum group. Wouter has since addressed this issue in his response.

Mark.

Can't people just NOT READ the things that don't interest them? Heck, I don't read posts about gelcoat repair, but I don't want boat maintenance to have its own forum. I love the variety on the forums. That's why there are different threads on different subjects.

It is great that this forum is so active -- it has definitely justified its existence as a forum separate from the Open Forum.

And the more posts there are on this forum, the more active and popular the class appears to be to outsiders. So I don't think you would want to break it up into different forums for different categories.

Very few people are interested in reading about or thinking about rules, and most people are smart enough to only read what interests them -- just like when reading a newspaper.

Steve,
I must say that your following statement-

"I agree with being inclusive, but we must be careful to include those with a common goal ie that of promoting the F16 class."

is pretty much wnat I'm on about.

Even if these people with the common goal don't have a boat. Provided they want what is best for the class as a whole, then each and every one is an assett. They are walkig advertisements for the class. A simple conversation around what they did over the weekend (ie. watching the F16s in action) can be the beginning of introducing a new member to the class.

So we need to include everyone that wants to be included but ensure the direction taken is for the good of the F16 class as a whole.

The trick is how to achieve the best of both worlds.
Include everyone as they all have value and ensure the class moves in the direction that is in its best interest.



Regards,
Phill

Hi Phill,

"The trick is how to achieve the best of both worlds.
Include everyone as they all have value and ensure the class moves in the direction that is in its best interest"

Agree completely - I`ll leave the mechanism up to you & Wouter to sort out though !

Keeping this post short - gotta go home now & get the boat ready for our solo champs - short report on Tuesday. Unfortunately only Mozzies will take part under F16, we need a guy like Gary !!

Cheers
Steve

Just an outsider view here.
What about two levels of membership. In the Star class (mono's) we had associate memberships for crews, fans, inactive sailors ect.. which gave them newsletters and complete involvement, however to vote on rules, you must be a voting member which requires you to be a boat owner.
cheers

I don't have a dog in this fight, (as the red-neck's down here like to say), but I'm glad there are people like Wooter, Phill and Matt, who will do the necessary work to get this class going.

I expect someday I will have one of Matt's Blades to race, here in the states. I expect I will only be racing against other Matt's Blades (MB's) and the Tai Pans, (we call them F'n Snakes) and will never see a Stealth or any other F16 around here.

As long as we all are pretty close to the same sail area, I'm happy. I have never seen anyone measure sails at a cat regatta but at all national dinghy championships, you must show up a day early and they do measure them.

A problem arises when you get a sail maker who also races and wants to push all the measurements, but to be fair, they should of course make the sails to the maximum size, so there needs to be a consistant measurement method to keep it fair.

But, do you intend to measure sails at every regatta? I doubt it. It doesn't take that long if you lay a pattern on the ground and lay the others over it, but you know someone always shows up late, with little time to rig, and bing-bang-boom they are out on the water.

I don't think an inch or two here or there matters in the big scheme of things, as one blown tack will offset any few inches of extra sail area.

But, if some guy wants to add 6" to the leach and a foot to the spinnaker luff, we may have a problem.

I think your post may have ended up in the wrong thread Tim,

With respect to sailarea. Over time, I came to believe deeply that recreational sailors make for too much of it. Remarkable is that active racers couldn't care less. Rig specs that are important in order magnitude are :

-1- Sail shape
-2- Sail trim
-3- Mast height
-4- Mast shape
-5- Luff length
-6- Sail area

(I left sail sheeting out of it but that is of course the most dominant factor).

The amount of area is therefor at the very bottom of the list; Within reason of course. Meaning as the difference in area or less than 5 % of the total. Both experiences (reference testing of my own sail to that of the standard Taipan) and scientific models point very much in this direction. The newer mainsail shapes have better gust response and accellerate better or keep the crew better on the wire, but in the way of all-out speed they are the same. The old sails just need more active sheeting to keep the sail driving than the new shape sails. As we are a formula class and don't have identical sails we will always have this inequality. However it must not be forgotten that One-design sails suffer from similar problems depending on how motivated the particular sailmaker was when he made a certain OD sail. Best about Formula is that quality control is more assured with respect to sails, but that is a different topic.

Best way to picture the whole situation is to regard a volume of air as containing a fixed portion of energy that can be harvested by a sail. The size and (position) of this volume is fully determined by the luff length (mast height), pointing angle and boat speed. When the luffs are all pretty much the same than all designs have the same potential amount of harvested energy per second when skippered right. This makes these boats equal. When a certain skipper is unable to achieve sufficient boatspeed by correct trim than he will cross a smaller volume per second and harvest less energy than a competitor and therefor go slower. This is not because he rig can not go faster but because his skills are still insufficient to speed the boat up even more to cross a larger volume of energy and harvest more energy. So this is sort of a postive feedback angle that makes rather small differences in much larger differences on the water. But all can be overcome by skill.

It doesn't really matter much wether you have 2 or 3 inches more area on your leech than an older sail when the luff lengths and boat platforms are the same. A smaller sail with the right trim can harvest the maximum amount of energy from a volume of air than a slightly bigger sail. Actually the guys doing best in the F16 class now are all sailing with sails that are less then the maximum allowed area. This is because they are just better sails and the difference in area that we are talking about is too small to matter in a significant way. Take note however that the new sail shapes are more significant ! So when Matt become really competitive to Jennifer it is not because of the luff length or sail area but because of the newer sailshapes. Of course in a formula class we don't rule on sail shape and the difference is probablay still measured in than 30 seconds or less per hour of racing. One doesn't need much difference in skill to overcome that.

All in all things stay pretty far as 90 % of the end result is directly sailor skill related and independent of the used hardware (when that is reasonably comparable between the makes).

Actually the small increase in area is good news for the older Taipan boats. With this they can get the newer mainsail shapes without having to take area away from the foot of the sails and having to fix a traveller system on their booms. This keeps thing less expensive AND more equal. The last is easy to see when realizing that no matter what the new mainsail shapes will get introduced and be used in the Formula 16 class. Forcing the older boats to continue to sail with the old shapes or having to invest in modified boom systems is neither fair nor attractive. Remember sailshape is more important is the overall result than sail area. And this is another reason why the simplification of the rules is to be favoured over the old rule.

Wouter

Tim,
You said, This happens at all national catamaran championships of classes that allow open sails -- for instance, the Wave Class and the Tornado Class and, I'm sure, the A-Class, and maybe the Shark Class.

And at national events involving the Hobie class boats, the boats themselves all have to be weighed, and if they are under minimum weight, they have to add weight to the boat. And the crews are weighed, and if they are too low on crew weight, they have to add weight for that, also.

At the Spring Fever Regatta all the F18's were up in one area being measured and weighed -- and that was not even a national championship.

Lots of weighing and measuring going on out there that maybe nobody notices.

Ok, never mind.

Agreed, associate membership would be a very good way to support the F16 class and stay in touch. I wont be eligible to join the class until Jan 2006 but would like to show my support now, I bet there are many more who feel the same way. I've spoken to three other local sailors with plans to move into F16 but it takes time to change classes. It would be great to show support now with an associate member scheme.
Darryn
Mosquito 1704
Adelaide

Hi Darryn

So are you putting a spinnaker on the Mozzie, building a Blade or ???????????

Spinnaker on the Mosquito, I've been using your excellent guide on the Victorian Mosquito website http://home.vicnet.net.au/~mosquito/sp_rigging.htm
to work out what I need and will pick up the spinnaker when I am over there for the Nationals. That will give me a couple of weeks to debug it prior to Milang to Goolwa race.
Until then I am gathering the various bits and pieces together and learning to sail the boat in its standard format.
Darryn

I concurr (speaking as a private F16 owner)

Laid my F16 on the beach this weekend; it had been at the Spring Cup club for the last month for the racing. At my club there is interest in both boats and association. It will take time before they are owners and so indeed seperation between associate and owner membership may be a good one. Of course I'm just a talking as a private owner here and not as the chairman. Phill Brander is handling the membership project now and I won't interfere with his proceedings.

Between you and me guys, I can't wait to unpack Jaaps new boat. Blade F16. And at my club I'm are not the only one. Could be the start of something

Wouter