Javelin 16 pictures

Is a hooter F16HP class legal?

Still have no understanding of why they want to go and reinvent the wheel. I know they have done that with F18HT but that is significantly different from the F18. Namely weight and carbon masts. But the variance of this design to the F16 is only small. But I guess each to their own.

Cheers
JC

Wouter

Well actually, this has nothing to do with the fact that it is being rolled instead of snuffer or whatever.

It all comes down to the Gennaker rule which specifies that a gennaker is a headsail with a grith that is at least 75 % of the foot.

Typically hooter have a girth of about 50 % and resemble very close the overall jib shape.

The Formula 16 class therefor considers hooter as very large jibs and of course we have a rule that specifies the jib to have a maximum area of about 3,70 sq. mtr.

So in fact if your hooter has an area of about 3,7 or less or have a girth that is bigger than 75 of the foot than you hooter is F16 legal.

But as both legal option or just nothing else than a jib or gennaker under a different name than I don't see the point in calling such a sail a hooter only because it is furled instead of snuffed or sheeted.

Wouter

Of course I must be very careful when commenting on the Jav 16 design. before we know it I will be accused of having a thing against it because I'm supposed to be deaf or hatefull.

But the following observations I would like to share with you.

On the Bimare webpage (currently residing at link http://utenti.lycos.it/bim/16eng.htm)

It is stated :

"it is the only 16 cat designed and built as a "pure" unirig boat . It does not deserve mention the advantages of such solution, become a "must" in a "open and development" catamaran rules such as the A and C class. Other boatyards offer 16 footers both in the unirig and sloop configuration, but they all are bom as sloop , so that they have to be overbuilt to withstand the heavy loads of their small jib and have to carry unnecessary weight aloft for jib riggings"

And what do they do ? They fit a hooter to the boat. With some sort of bridle strop for the hooter pole that has a worse angle than a jib bridle.

What are the best advantages of a hooter ?

You can carry it when going up wind or on a reach. But in that configuration the hooter will at least introduce the same loads on the hulls (If not more) than a much smaller jib on a brilde strop with a better angle. There goes the weight savings in the hulls or you can't fly the hooter upwind or on a reach.

But of course the hooter is cut flatter than a spi but fuller than a jib. So when sailing upwind a hooter boat will not outpoint a sloop rig. Now I do give the Jav 16 the advantange of being able to point higher than a sloop upwind as it is a unirig, why would one want to loose that by sailing upwind with a hooter ?

Is these considerations are correct then the hooter will exclusively be used downwind. From the pole length it looks like the hooter foot is about 75 % of the F16 gennaker foot. The hooter sail will therefor not be larger tha about 12,5 sq.mtr. The hooter is of course a fast sail, that is a given but for pure downwind sailing I'm not sure wether the increased efficiciency is enough to fully compensate for the 25 % loss in area and the much flatter cut.

I do see that the hooter can operate at much smaller angels of attack than a Gennaker can and that it is less limited in downwind top speed as a result. But than again there is that trade-off between power and speed. One needs just enough power to get to a certain speed but the operatinal angle of attack needs to be small enough to be able to produce that power at that speed. If you fail in either one of these you fail to achieve the high speed as you are limited by either lack of power of insufficient ability to operate a small angles of attack.

Rick feels that the hooter strikes a better balance between these two important variables and he may be right. Without direct one against one testing we won't know.

Wouter