Rules changes

Painting a hull after its built is

the normal maintenance procedure

?

as non english native, I look for a dictionnary definition of routine (the word used in the rules) :

1.a customary or regular course of procedure.
2.commonplace tasks, chores, or duties as must be done regularly or at specified intervals; typical or everyday activity: the routine of an office.
3.regular, unvarying, habitual, unimaginative, or rote procedure.
4.an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response: Don't give me that brotherly-love routine!

in this case:

I wash my hull, take-off the stickers organisation is routine maintenance.
Repairing a hole is also routine maintenance every time you have to do it.
Painting an entire hull just after its building is obviously not a routine.

But this is not a word issue.
This rule (as other one) can be changed but with one year notice, in order to be fair.
All the boat maker playing same game.

Franck,

You can think what you like, but I have discussed he matter at length with ISAF and it's perfectly legal to paint the hulls after manufacture.

But that does not appear to be what the intent of the rule is. According to the rule, boats are to be manufactured with a gelcoat finish, paint is to be used as a repair/maintenace solution, not as a means to refinish the boat to gain an perceived advantage. (if you are so insistant that the boats be painted instead of gelcoat, other than a performance advantage, what could your motivation be)?

+1

There have been painted F18's from the very inception of the class. Paintis not a new method to surface coat an F18.

How could you use gelcoat to surface coat a wood-epoxy f18? This build method has been approved since day one and yet some people in the class seem to have forgotten

This is not an acceptable reason to not follow the intent of the rule. The rule says gelcoat, so why are you so insistant on paint.

Its pretty simple, We have a production method that uses paint. we can lower our production cost with paint and we believe its a better product.

The Intention of the class was to allow cost effective racing to all members, And from day 1 it has been possible to paint your boat. Nobody has ever used gelcoat on a wood boat, they paint them. If you are building in a high labour cost country then you would use paint. Its saves time and therefore money.

There is no difference in performance and there is no cost increase, so why would anyone want to stop it?

Plywood-epoxy F18's are illegal unless they are made of balsa.

I am with Macca. I do not see what the

intent

of the rule matters when it would have been perfectly easy to write them otherwise. If painting a boat after manufacture was not allowed there are various wordings that could have made this clear.

As far as I am concerned, ambiguity is laziness and when rules are written with ambiguity it can only be interpreted as intentional.

Cheers,
Karl

D.3.1 MATERIALS
(a) The hull shells shall be built from polyester or vinylester resin, glass
fibres, polyester gelcoat, a core of PVC, balsa or felt, the combination of wood-epoxy, injected plastic, which shall not be altered other than locally for fittings, and passage of equipment and normal reinforcement. Epoxy glue is permitted for joining components. Every material that is not expressly permitted is prohibited.

Looks like wood-epoxy is allowed.

And so if the class has approved the wood-epoxy method of building, how do they think you can apply polyester gelcoat to such a hull??

You have to use paint!!

Paint is not a new development in the class, its just an issue now because a painted boat is winning.

If, as you argue, paint is such a superior product to use to finish boats, why are the major players in the class (Hobie, AHPC, Nacra), not turning out painted boats instead of gelcoated boats? I am not trying to be argumentative here, there must be a reason and I am really interested to know what it is.

The existing large manufacturers have developed their build methods down the gelcoat pathway, as there is no performance difference it makes no sense for them to change.

We started with a clean sheet of paper and as such we were able to choose the best, most cost effective method available. Nacra and AHPC produce their boats in low labour cost countries, whereas we are producing in Europe and as such we are trying to minimise costs via lowering the time spend per hull. Paint is proven to be a quicker method to complete a hull as you can spray all the seams whereas gelcoat takes about 8-10 hours per hull to finish the seams.

Wow, I have read that rule wrong for years. I thought it was trying to say that only a

wood

epoxy could be used. I even asked for a clarification once about what epoxy would count as

wood

epoxy. Yet another example of poorly worded rules.

That seems a bit unfair Macca, so far it has only won one event and it was sailed by someone who could make a bathtub go fast.

Here is the origin of many wrong thinking.

Indeed, a painted or gel-coated boat is not winning. Never.
The sailors did.
By their talent and work.

The spirit of F18 is to have very close boat in order to have close fight in real time, where sailors skill and decision make the difference.

What is the sport interest to win if the boat is faster ?
F18 isn't Formula 1 racing.

Though it is always a ordinary commercial interest to make people believe that new brand are faster.

It's, of course not, a question of person. For me, to be with or against anybody isn't the path.

On the paint question the very last TC (long and hard) work report show that there is not consensus between manufacturers.

In the same time ISAF has confirmed the World Council (WC) decisions of november, that everybody can check by crossing the minutes of the WC and the last ISAF publication.

ISAF is a big machine so they process step by step and in a very logical way: written interpretation (cleaning that what WC ask), amendments and then updating class rules.

http://www.sailing.org/2129.php

It is always possible to ask for interpretation of the interpretation done by ISAF, but I can't see why ISAF people would change their mind in a few days. There is no more ambiguity. By the way ISAF changed the chapter of the maintenance item in order to stress that

routine maintenance

is under sailor responsability and add polyester gel coat in the list of materials.

ISAF is the third institution,in the process of decision: it is a team work.

First step is the Technical comittee (TC), composed by boats and sails makers and collecting point of view from industry people: Goodall, Boulogne, Soldano, Lauriot-Prevost, Contreas, Rogers, Melvin, Jary...

They give advices but it is the WC which decide and vote.

WC, the second step, is composed mostly by F18 sailors and elected by F18 sailors.

For the WC, nations aren't the key for the weight of vote.
One French/Italian/Ned F18 member is not more important but not less than one US, Australian or Argentinian F18 members.

That is important, because on one hand you have (respectable) commercial interest, on the other hand: class of F18 owner/members interest.

Indeed, guys who paid their boat, do vote the rules.

Please read the Don Finlay (TC Chairman) text which explain that better than I can do with my poor english:

http://tinyurl.com/7vpfmz6

The main reason of the F18 success is that we're sailing F18 for fun.
And only Champions win, not the boat.

Franck Tiffon
WC french representative -www.f18.fr-
F18 sailor since october 1994 (White Hawk with gel coat 😉
Capricorn F18 FRA 327

The answer is clearly stated in the Nov 2011 WC minutes.

The view of the committee is that it is not desirable at this point to have boats supplied with an epoxy finish from the factory.

It was discussed that epoxy coatings have some potential advantages for the class, particularly for maintenance. But it is felt that the current risk to the class of having boats marketed and sold with 'premium' epoxy coatings is undesirable, and a sufficient risk to the class right now to justify strict control.

That statement in addition to Don Finlay's (TC Chairman) January article about preserving the value in the existing F-18 fleet makes it clear why the the action was taken.

It presumes that the sailors do not see through the marketing spin and would cause an overnight devaluation in the existing inventory of boats. A by-product is that it protects the gel-coat based builders' market share.

Unfortunately, the painted boats were in compliance with the rules before the recent revision. It smacks of protectionism and assumes that the racers are

lemmings

to the latest fad and that we need to be protected from ourselves. If the information was out that a gel-coat finish is no slower or faster than an epoxy finish, the percieved threat would be invalid.

Please excuse my ignorance, but does

epoxy finish

or

Premium epoxy coating

equal paint?

Nobody really knows!!

If you ask some of the top designers in he world they will say that there is no difference between paint of any type, and gelcoat in terms of performance.

Gel coat is the simple way to be compatible with polyester resin and get a good finish straight from the mold. Boat builders have used it since they started making fiberglass boats. Gel coat is not compatible with epoxy and most items made with epoxy elect to use a post applied paint system.

For boats with unfinished deck seems like the H16, a lot of dinghies etc gel coat works great. The finish on the gel coat if done properly will match the finish on the mold. Minimal to no finish work and the costs are kept low. The new modern cat hulls almost all have a lot of post finish seam work done to the hulls. This is very labor intensive and can be a good application for using paint in place of gel coat. The cost adder in production here is the finish work on the hull to remove the seam, the use of gel coat or paint makes no real difference to the cost of the end boat. If the class wants to consider their rules to be a cap to costs, then the styling is the issue not the material.

A paint shop will tell you it is better to use paint and a traditional fiberglass shop will prefer to work with gel coat. Each have their issues as far as technique and finish. The big problem a lot of shops are facing is regulation. It is illegal to spray styrenated resins (gel coat) in many places around the world. Brush application of gel coat is not an acceptable alternative to any production shop. We can all move our shops to Asia, and most have already but eventually things will catch up there as well.

The new better paints weather a lot better than gel coats. This might be a nice suggestion as far as longevity of used boats. If someone is seriously considering that paint is going to provide some huge performance gain then they need to look at another hobby.

Chemical industry or fluid mechanist are able to express an opinion on this question of performance.

In results done by Otago Flume Laboratory they found that its satin finish gave a 15% less drag coefficient that a high gloss surface.

May be it's only marketing, like the following quotation from a recent F18 flyer concerning a point about paint performance:

saving 3 kg per hull compared to gelcoat allows to increase the laminate and internal structure of the hulls in order to improve both stiffness and durability.

Here the key point is the fair competition between boat builders. That's why rules can change with one year delay notice.

At least there is a doubt. TC people did not find consensus. Here I do admit in the doubt the World Council choose a conservative way for the clarification (no extra rules).
Way which is just confirmed by ISAF.

Franck, Normally intelligent people can see marketing when they see it.

Nacra also claims that by Infusing their hulls they are stiffer and stronger, but I have yet to see you bash them for such claims.

Besides, if we can save weight by using paint, and then use that extra weight to build stronger hulls that last longer its better for customers, and that is what the class management should be encouraging!!!

What is of great concern to the members of the french association is that you claim to represent their best interests, but its very clear you are abusing the voting power vested in you by those members to push your own agenda.

If you could buy a boat that is cheaper, stiffer and more durable because of the use of paint instead of gelcoat then that has to be a good thing for the class.

If you are banning paint because the large manufacturers in the class won't change their production methods and will therefore have a more expensive, less stiff and less durable boat than a new brand entering the market then this has to be a bad thing for the class.

Catsailingnews blog has a lot of chatter on this at the moment with Alex Udin claiming he is being targeted by the big boys.

The more I see of this saga the more I'm starting to believe it. He may, or may not, be the most unlikeable person in sailing. That doesn't give the association the right to enforce rules to target his boats.

Franck, I've asked you this previously. Why is it ok to grandather the Spitfire when they obviously breached the rules, yet the Sail Innovation sails were banned immediately, even after being approved by association measurers?

And with this ruling from ISAF, does the association plan on banning the current Phantoms? If so, will the association also be banning all other boats finished with paint?

Franck - your claims about paint improving performance (because their marketing says so....) so they need to be banned can be easily fixed.

In the same way you have approved material for sails, hulls etc. Simply provide a list of approved paints that are to be used.

Problem solved. http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/icons/default/smile.gif

Can the F18 association please, please, please go to a back room for 6 months and re-write the class rules so we can stop the confusion of constant amendments.

I just point out, like others, contradictions and double speech.

Infusing hulls doesn't seem to break F18 rules.

The basic question here, is (any as you affirm) paint do not increase performance vs gelcoated hull ?

At least there is a doubt. TC people did not find consensus. Here I do admit in the doubt the World Council choose a conservative way for the clarification (no extra rules).
Way which is just confirmed by ISAF.

I try to expose ideas, decision and people work (TC, WC and now ISAF), that's why I do precise to be crystal clear I'm part of it.

Macca, I'm sad that each time there is no ideas or fact in front of mine, you use personnal attack.
Would you be as kind as to expose what do you mean by

own agenda

?

I've been elected two times (2006 an 2009) and you know what ? As treasurer, I'm the bad boy who always ask for money 😉
In 2006 they were 90 french members, in 2011 there is 280 french members.
This is a team work success and passion shared, which make me happy.

So please Macca, let's stay in ideas and fact field. F18 deserved that.

Hi Gav, I just say there is at least doubt about paint improving performance and some double speech does not help.

As doubt exists on this question, WC choose a conservative way for brand new F18.
And the new fact is that ISAF confirmed this approach (painting for routine maintenance is allowed but in the customer chapter) and in the same move improved the wording.

About rewriting I do not believe it is a fast and secure way.
Most of difficulties we have to face now are from the rewriting in order to fit to ISAF standart (ERS).

In the TC, Andrew Gallagher and now Don Findlay do great job with all the involved technicians, and they are also open to outside advices.

Here we focus (a little too much ?) ont paint but many others issues are already solved
-length daggerboard limitation,
-carbon allowed parts,
-crews weight limit,
-mainsails in one ply

and many others are on the table of the TC and soon to be precised (boat and hull centreplane, boom, mast fitting, luff and leech lines...).
I'm very impressed by this team work.

Except length daggerboard and crew weight all is already in the class rules and need just to be clarified.

Indeed since Corecell/Shockwave the new trend is to not changed the rules when the rules are broken.
Till now, grandfathering and derogation (RSS87) allow F18 customers to used material that has been certified.

For me the great next move is to have a builder certificat of compliance.
Given with the bill to the customer, it will not replace the measurer work and the certificate which transform a 18 feet catamaran into a magical F18.

<**** agenda against one builder.

Neither Hawk, Alado, Cirrus, Tiger nor Mattia (nice pinky gel coat) were painted.
May be you can afford exemple of the day one, I've found none.

Just an extract of the 2002 rules, looks like paint or epoxy paint were not allowed:

For the construction, only the following materials are authorized : polyester or vinylester resin, glass fibres, core of PVC or balsa or felt, the combination of wood-epoxy, injected plastic, steel, extruded aluminium profiles of constant section, which shall not be altered, other than locally for the fixings and passage of equipment and normal reinforcement.
Every material that is not expressly permitted, is prohibited.
Carbon is only permitted in spreaders, rudder blades, dagger boards, blocks, cleats and tiller extension. Epoxy glue is permitted for joining components.

Check there: www.sailing.org/2129.php

But that is the past and we have to look forward (5 years is a long time 😉

Present is: still no consensus on this issue in the TC, (the last report is this week old), more than 95% of the F18 fleet is with gel coat finish.
At the last november WC, a majority vote for the clarification (no new rule) confirmed by this week ISAF interpretation:

Question 1:
In reference to class rule D.2.3(a)

Routine maintenance such as painting and polishing is permitted without re-measurement and re-certification

- Does this rule allow new boats to be supplied with a painted finish?
Answer 1:
NO.

Future is wide open, propose an amendment to TC, then the chain of vote will work from national association to WC. In France I'm sure some will support such painting amendment,also I know some will be against.

Concerning price I feel (show me I'm wrong) that all prices are very similar for brand new F18, from

big

or

small

company.

Mattia are painted. Confirmed by Enrico himself.

I had a wood epoxy boat in 2005, painted.

I know of more small run production boats as well, all painted.

Many refurbished boats in Paint as well.

I'm done with arguing a mute point with you Franck, you have displayed a clear bias against paint regardless of the mounds of evidence to support paint presented to you.

If you truly have the best interests of the class at heart I suggest you look at the facts, and remove your personal grudge.

Your French class members will appreciate it