difference between boats

**** pecked when picking up your new boat

I cannot tell you about the shape of the Stealth, I've only seen the pictures, but I have sailed both the Spitfire you have and own a Blade. In a short word, the Spitfire is round where the Blade is flat. The Blade has very fine bows, flat sides, fairly flat decks. The Spitfire is a much rounder hull design with fatter bows. The Blade was built to the F16 rule where the Spitfire was not, but it does fit into the rules.

If you take performance as a criteria there is very little between them as they are the both built to the F16 box rules. The hull shapes and costs (if buying brand new) are the main difference between the two. At present Stealths are built in the UK where as the Blades are built in Australia and USA and imported via Catamaran parts NL. If you intend to sail singlehanded then the Stealth is probably the better option as it is sold with a Carbon mast as standard where as with the Blade it's an extra. Carbon masts are at least half the weight of an alloy mast so it is a lot easier to handle and right after a capsize.
If you're not in an imediate hurry to buy an F16 there should be some at the 2008 Eurocat Event in Carnac to look at.
One of the big differences between the Spitfire and Formula 16 is the running costs. As we are not a one design Class our sails are considerably cheaper and probably better designed and manufactured. Popular sailmakers include Landenberger, Ashby and Glaser.

Hi Tim
Not meaning to sound like the big 'W' but the Spitfire doesn't fit the F16 box rule. Their sail area is 1.8m bigger and they are also 30mm wider. These are the main reasons why I believe they are no longer eligible for 'Grandfather' rights in an F16 Event.

Thanks Mark, I was not aware they are no longer considered an F16, I thought the Grandfather thing was for ever. Too bad, we could use more F16's. Were they beating all the others or something to cause that?

The quality of the UK Spitfire fleet is awesome. Their top sailors are well capable of beating anything less than 21ft on a very, very regular basis. So yes, this might also have something to do with it!!

I saw 3 Spitfires and 3 Blades racing in Dubai, they were pretty even, except for David Holligan who was on his Blade alone, smoking everyone of them! He's fast! I think it's more a matter of who's driving than the two different designs, I don't think the Spitfire is any faster than the Blade in the same hands. But the Spitfire has been around several years longer so those guys have much more experience on them, and that does make them faster.

Matt and Gina have lots of time racing together and on the Blade they are very fast, much faster than the rest of us Blade sailors over here. So I think it is more a matter of who's driving the boats than the boats themselves.

I agree with Tim (and Mark).
It's a pity that a cat which is rated slower than a F16, but who's measurements are very close, is excluded from racing on a level footing, just because it is sailed by some hot sailors.
Many of the French Spitfire sailors are just as good as the UK ones.
I am aware that the Spitfire sailors tend to sail

One Design

and do not usually ask to join the F16 fleet.

The F16s must be doing something right if a French Spitfire Sailor (with an established fleet) is changing over <img src=

alt=

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Fortunately, that's not what happened. Grandfathering was designed to allow the class to build numbers quickly using existing designs. I can't remember any case where Spitfires and F16s have sailed together under the banner of

F16

. Further, in regions where the Spitfire is sailed, they have strong SMOD fleets, and so there would be little desire to migrate their design to an F16 compliant one. Therefore, there seems little to gain for our class by retaining this grandfathering.

If individual sailors want to race first-across-the-line between F16s and Spitfires then they could still do so, just as the UK sailors have done with the FX-ones.

Paul