For the Dutch sailing magazine article and for a segment dealing with our class in a new book about catamaran sailing I've been recounting our numbers :

Turns out we are well past 100 boats in the world. The count puts us at about 140 boats in the world. And I'm not counting any spitfires or any Australian Taipan 4.9's in standard attire.

Afterall USA has about 25 F16's and the number is growing with each Blade F16 sold.
Singapore is now standing at 24 F16's; if my info is correct; if not then they are still past 20 at the very minimum.
UK reports over 30 Stealths with all orgininal Stealth having been upgraded to Stealth F16's or Stealth R's; the later is a foundation F16 boat just like the Taipan 4.9

These 3 area's in themselfs constitude already 79 boats.

Then we have 4 in shanghai China
4 or 5 in Thailand
9 in the netherlands, with number 10 being build as we speak and expecting numbers 11 and 12 to be put on order soon.
About 20 in South Africa
About 10 PURE F16's in Australia (meaning I'm not counting any of the standard Taipan 4.9's without a spi overthere. over 200 of these present in Australia); so I'm making a very conservative estimate for Australia. I know of several Taipan 4.9's with spi locally in Australia.
Germany and Zwisterland have several Taipans with spi's as well ; I know of 5 personally, but the real number is closer to 10.
Then we a few F16's spread about in places like like canary islands.


Add al this up and we are looking at about 140 F16 boats in the world today.

We will breach the 150 mark somewhere in the year 2006, only 5 years after the very first mentioning of establishing a F16 class. Not a bad growth considering we don't have the support of any of the big boat builders like Hobie or Nacra.

Actually I was quite surprised myself by this number. I expect to be alot closer to the 100 mark, probably slightly below it. Turns out that my gut feeling was off by almost 50 %

I just wanted you all to share in the (personal) amazement !

Wouter