Rules changes

Sloan, this has to do with the appearance of cross cut sails, made with two sail cloth materials, technically not in compliance with rule G.3.4.b specifying uniformity of legal sail cloth material. (Personally I am not sure why there is such as fuss over uniform cloth, so long as the cloth is legal, but so be it.

The absolute definition of the rule makes all spinnakers similarly illegal. Why? As specified by the strictest definition of the rules, all F18 Spis include reinforcing cloth at the grommets, and therefore, are technically constructed out of two dissimilar sail cloths.

If the clarification of the rule is anything like other recent decisions, the outcome may be more murky after the necessary ruling discussion that will be forthcoming...If they aren't the most clear, at least, our ruling body is amusing!

Here is the link to the letter.

Letter to F18 Europeans Jury Chair

Sensational journalism from my perspective. A different title could have been

F18 Class Updates Rules

and the story could discuss ambiguity that has been identified regarding the reinforcement cloth used for spins as being constructed out of more than one material.......boring! However, that does not get readers' attention.

Thats what it looked like to me too. I was more concerned with the

no paint

comment since my boards and rudders are painted and I'm considering painting the hulls as well.

I guess the Cat Racing site is trying to emulate SA... <img src="<>/crazy.gif" alt="crazy" title="crazy" height="15" width="15" />

The issue is quite serious, the world council has decided to change class rules without understanding the impact of their actions.

They have been advised by well informed sources that their actions would be ill advised and yet they went ahead with the changes regardless.

For example, there are quite a number of boats in the fleet that have been painted and with this new rule they are currently not considered F18's anymore!! The class did not consider the effects of the rule when it comes to refurbishing an older boat, So now you can only spray gelcoat on it... Micht as well spray lead on the thing!

The sail cloth issues are much the same, there was substantial advice from industry professionals that was clearly contrary to the decisions taken, and now we have this whole thing blow up and the class has gotten itself into a real mess.

I really hope it can be rectified ASAP for the good of all F18 class members.

We could use a bit more clarity and foresight on rules, and a bit more transparency over the process. It seems like 'something happens', no one seems to know what is happening, the better part of a year transpires, then a decision is issued on the rule challenge that lacks the clarity everyone wants.

Simply put: I'd like to see an agenda with topics, forecast discussion, allow a skype dial in (or something when a discussion is open), and then for the ruling body to issue clear mandates on rules changes, and post them in a timely way. That's not too much to ask is it?

If you listen to some of the officers in the Class, yes, that is too much to ask.

Things are not particularly copacetic on the Council right now. I'm hoping that we can work through somethings over the next couple of months...

KARL F - DO NOT open the spray gun or the black paint!!!!

Please return these items ASAP.

There is a lot of pressure currently to achieve exactly what you are asking for. More support will help, but it looks like we will have a review of the process and the recent decisions as well.

Remember, no rule is valid in the class until ISAF certifies it and publishes it on the sailing.org website and that realistically wont be until the middle of 2012 at the earliest. So there is plenty of time for sanity to prevail!

If you don't agree with the recent decisions, let your Class representative know so they can pass it on to the WC.

And if you want more info you can PM me.

John and Dave, PLEASE HELP ALLOW ME TO PAINT MY BOAT!

Hi Kris

You may be right now, but you need to read the whole post. I did not detailed the wording as the minutes are still not published. So I will wait for them to be online , as I remarked, then I will detail every aspect of it.

If not I'm talking without a reference for readers to confirm/check themselves. I cannot and wont publish the Minutes until published, but it is Important to note that this info was encouraged in the WC to be distributed, and published in a french website even before all NAs had their copy, so you'll get the idea of what is going on... full details without sensational journalism to follow as I clearly stated on those posts.

Cheers,
Martin - CSNews.

US F18 Sailors, what are your opinions on this issue?

Painting should be allowed. Gel coat is expensive and unreliable. Having an epoxy paint will make repairs and upkeep much quicker, easier and cheaper. Not to mention the ability to touch up our boats on site.

Who do I draft a more detailed letter to on this issue?

Talk about a sour taste in my mouth before even sailing the new boat!

Cheers,
Karl
Team Kwjiboat

What is the motivation behind this painting rule? Is there an advantage to using it over gelcoat (apart from the weight)?
When will the full minutes be available?

The painting rule could be given the name

the phantom rule

it was specifically designed to stop the Phantom. As some details of the new production Phantom became clear it was detailed that the new boat would be painted in an epoxy paint which gives a very high quality finish and in the matt style it looks unreal too.

A scare campaign went through the WC claiming that painted boats would have a considerable advantage. They declined to back the claims up with anything like facts.... it reminds me of this classic from Will Ferrel global warming

Paint is just a better solution, as mentioned above, its easier to repair, lasts longer and is lighter than gelcoat. There is no speed advantage at all so there is no justifiable reason to ban it.

But the same could be said for the 2 types of cloth in a mainsail rule too, every independent sailmaker in the class agrees that it should be allowed and it increases the life of the sails and makes them cheaper. So again, why would you ban it?

If there is no performance advantage to a painted boat, then I have no issue with it. The weight savings of a painted boat is a mute point. The boats must come in a minumum weight anyway and most of the new(er) boats are at or right near minimum weight, so a lighter finish over gel-coat offers no real advantage in that respect.

If the only advantage to a painted boat is in maintenance, repair, and upkeep then bring on the paint. If there are performance advantages to paint, I think everyone would be in agreement to keep paint banned.

Martin -

CS News does excellent coverage of beach cat racing news and reporting....it is very much appreciated!!!! Thus my surprise at the headline relative to the non-sensational (pre-minutes) content on spins. I can imagine the ethical challenge that someone with your resources and interest in the class to know the forthcoming news and yet be restrained from giving it the attention that it duly deserves.

The F18 rule set obviously works. The challenge is keeping it simple yet responding to

loopholes/ambiguities

and

new technology/processes

in a manner that welcomes innovation within the semi-development concept but does not ignore abuses to the rule set nor disenfranchises the class members.

I would assume if two cloths are not allowed in sails than we are all rule breakers for having windows in our mains and jibs. Technically that would be a different cloth. The sad part about all of this is that there are people who are trying to find the loop holes in the rules for the sole purpose of exploiting them thus creating all of this drama.

+1

Karl, if you'd like you can send the letter to me and I'll forward it to the WC. However, as John indicated there are issues so...

Anyway, I'm not sure if or when the the topic is going to come up before the council again. The way I hope it will work the is WC will reopen the issue. At that time I will send out ballot basically saying

allow paint

,

don't allow paint

and I will cast our votes based on what the USF18 class wants.

Playing devil’s advocate here, the issue could be one more of perception than reality. I would imagine a painted boat would be marketed to say that weight has been removed from the ends and moved to the CG making the rig more stable than conventional gel boats (my boat is better). I'm not saying this is real but I have seen fleets get hung up over less, besides someone had to be the contrarian. Okay Andrew, you're up.

I don't know when the minutes will be released.

Wouldn't concetrating the weight lower on the platform be an advantage? Moving the lost weight from the gel coat above the hulls seems counterproductive.

The current rules say:

The body of the sail shall consist of the same woven and/or laminated ply
throughout with the exception of the window which may be different.

The marketing would be that the weight has been reduced at the the ends (bow and stern) to reduce pitching. My assumption is the boat would be at weight or maybe a little under and the saved weight on the ends would be moved low and to the middle of the hulls during the construction process not strapped onto the crossbeam post build.

The argument could also be made that the weight saved with the paint has been transfered into making the boat stiffer. So, now the boat would be marketed as, it pitches less because... and it's stiffer because...

Here's the larger issue; there are two opposing philosophies at work on the Council - either voting is weighted by the number of members in each national body (the current rule), or all national bodies are weighted equally (i.e., one vote per country). Currently, the US would need a coalition of many other countries to make a change - three or four of the EU countries carry three- to five-times as many votes each as we do. The result, as we saw with the ridiculous vote to ban any F18 that gets selected as Olympic equipment, is that a two country EU voting bloc can become insurmountable. So while I greatly respect Dave's consistent effort to determine the US position on matters like paint and sail materials, it is unlikely we can make our position matter at the Council level under the current constitution.

I don't mean to sound discouraging or quash discussion - I think Dave is doing it right and we're lucky to have someone with his conscientious approach. I just want us to debate with a clear eye toward not only establishing a reasoned position, but also how to adopt that position in a meaningful way.

Actually, I think (my opinion) the larger issue is that most F18's don't even the slightest clue as to how the rules are made, are changed, when, where, why or how. (Not snarky, its the truth...)

How does the process work? Do we have a unique opportunity to fix anything in Long Beach next year?

As John said, there are some balance of power concerns in the current structure and they lead to the kinds of situations we see here now. There are 4 countries (FRA, ITA, NED, GER) that control half the votes of 22 countries total. So if those 4 want a rule, then they get it...

There is no polling of their members to decide what position the general membership wants to take on issues and the information supplied to the voting members is also not complete or verified. So the decisions are compromised and influenced unduly resulting in the mess we see today.

As for the actual arguments on the rule changes, below is an extract from the analysis I did on the recent class rule changes. I have completed this for the sail cloth issues as well.

There are 2 arguments presented to the WC regarding the use of paint:-
1. “fairing and painting to an ultra-high finish it is a very labour intensive and expensive process”
2. “there are popular paints and coatings in professional sailing that have been proven to give a performance advantage”

Modern paint systems allow builders to spray into the mould in the same way as gelcoat and they can be sprayed on the hull as a combined filler/topcoat. The painting process can be quicker overall than the total time to finish a gelcoated hull, hence there is a cost saving using some of the modern paint systems.
Additionally there is nothing in the rules to prevent any manufacturer or competitor from fairing and preparing their gelcoated hulls to an ultra-high finish. As an example in 2009 Herbert Dercksen and I faired and prepared our Nacra Infusion to what could only be described as an ultra-high finish. The boat was longboarded, filled and the hull surface was professionally prepared at considerable expense. My point here is that preventing painted hulls does not prevent fairing and preparing hulls to a very high standard. There is no feasible way for the class to prevent this expensive practice other than to encourage manufacturers to produce high quality finishes that do not require post delivery work to rectify manufacturing blemishes.

The second point (claiming that Epoxy is advantaged over other paints) is not backed up by any facts or references, There are 3 main suppliers of paints in the yachting industry, Resene, Alexseal and Awlgrip. Each has various products including epoxy, polyurethane and mixes of epoxy and urethane. No one product that has proven to have any performance advantage. This is evidenced by the spread of different products in the worlds top yacht fleets. For example the 10 existing AC45’s are painted in products supplied by all three suppliers, the same spread of products is apparent in the TP52 class. There is not one product that is dominant and as such the overwhelming evidence is contrary to those claims.
To put it simply: Just because somebody heard that product X was better than product Y is not justifiable grounds for the class to ban something that is standard practice in the boat building industry.

The new rule has effectively prevented the construction of boats in wood-epoxy and there is no provision in the rule for existing boats that are painted.
Just how older boats are refurbished now is also a mystery, spraying gelcoat onto a 5 year old F18 is not feasible as any industry professional will attest.

Then our council is ruling by fiat. If that's true, the council may be doomed by a thousand internal cuts, and defined by growing apathy and disaffection with the ruling process.

The description sounds like a recipe for systemic governance failure, and not in the long-term interests of a fast growing class interests worldwide. In my opinion, by-laws need to be connected with the world-wide interests, including minority representation, in order for the body sustain relevance and act on behalf of both the shared goals and differences of the constuency. This should change, if nothing more, than for the good and sustainability of the council.