Taipan F14--Did you know...

EJ,

Thanks for sharing this! Maybe Jim could retool and add small daggers for a US boat! His boats are well built and he already has an established US dealership network!

Bob

The boat was a small 14ftr trainer and really not suitable for serious competition. It's performance in the 14ft class was a bit average here in Oz.
MY '430' pictured above is more of a performance oriented 4.3m/14ftr.
Specs.
Designer/Builder
Bern Leslie
Length:
14ft nom. / 4.3m [LWL]
Beam:
7ft.10in / 2.4m
Displacement:
107lbs / 75kg
Sail area:
main: 145sqft / 13.5sqm
Spinnaker: TBA
Mast Height:
24ft 7ins. / 7.5m
Bern

I checked with AHPC. Bad news, no plans for the 4.3 Tiapan exist. They made it modifying some molds for the 4.9. Unfortunatly, it doesn't seem like they want to be much help.

I'm serious about building a boat, but I'm not going to make a mold. It's going to have to be tortured ply, or something I can "build up". Glass and foam don't scare me, and neither does carbon.

Got a used A class pentax main for the sail, now I need a mast, beams, and rudder system.

So for those that have built your own boats...just how hard is it???

Here is a letter I received from Greg Goodall at AHPC:

Hi Mary,
the formula 14 class is a interesting concept and hopefully will become
popular.
Unfortunately we don't have any plans for building a 4.3 catamaran at this
time. The taipan 4.3 that we built a couple of years ago was only a proto
type adapted out of the taipan 4.9 moulds. This boat was sold 18 months ago.
We do not intend to do any further development on the 4.3 at this time.

Regards,
Greg

Looks like we got the same letter

Yeah, but I bet yours didn't say, "Hi Mary."

It would be interesting who bought the boat.

We could sail it against the others and if it is suited, build molds of it and start our own F14.

Bern (again)