BIMARE 4X Formula 18: first pics

Ugly.

It has the general shape of a catamaran hull, alright.

Whats the idea with the black-out and and low res ? You are not seriously thinking that you're protecting some top secret design features. are you ? Besides, looks more like this object in the picture is covered with filler (see the patches) to smooth out the hull. Well, you have to get up to weight somehow. Also the hull looks surprisingly alot like a XJ hull (A-cat) when looking at the sterns. In fact I can't really tell from any picture wether it is actually a new hull with enough volume for an F18 or just a solarized XJ hull. It also looks rather narrow on the deck line to me, as well as having narrow sterns. And why is the left hull blacked out in pic 5 ? In pic 4 you can see this left hull better (now in the background) Looks wider at the deck and more volumious in the sterns. It even has pintles on its sterns and it is definately not a Jav-2 or Jav-16 hull. In the other pics the big 4-X logo is covering it up mostly. Look alot like a capricorn F18 hull actually. Humm, would that mean .... ?

Anyway if the hull in the foreground is the one we are talking about then that boat it is still some way from completion. It looks like the design has made it off the drawing board and the very first hull (without a deck, note the between the beams) is under construction.

Boy am I feeling sarcastic today. Although that "mission impossible" feel to the provided pictures didn't really help in getting over this mood.

I mean, COME ON ! Just show us the normal pictures or don't show us anything.

Wouter

The proof that it is actually a new hull with enough volume for a F18 is that it does not fit the Javelin 2 cradles!

Sherlock Holmes

They aren't blacked out - the photos have been color-inverted (they're negatives).

Two clicks in PhotoShop and:

Like Mary said. Ugly. And unfinished.

C'mon Wout - didja just get your computer yesterday?

Or it is (more) proof that the Jav-2 hull doesn't have enough volume !

Besides, any meaningfull proof of suffient volume is to be found on the water during actual testing and racing in an F18 fleet.

You will find that that is elementary, my Dear Watson

Wouter

Hey Matt,

Please invert back that black blot in the general shape of a hull that is on the left side of this picture :

That I call blacked-out !

Also notice how the same hull is removed from vision in some of the other pictures by a surprisingly large X-4 logo

example :

I did - and it's not just blurred out (I could tease that out in PhotoShop) - it's erased. Shhhhhh! It's a secret!

.

Thanks John,

I'm quite sure now. That hull in the background is most probably a Capricorn F18 hull.

Interesting.

Wouter

Compliments Messieur Hercule Poirot (alias Wouter).
Then you are Belgian and not Dutch!

They look nicer than my 5.2. Also, that's a nice looking facility in the background. Are those A2 hulls?

-Rob V.

That would be monsieur Poirot as there is only one of me.

("Messieurs" is only used when simultaniously adressing multiple gentlemen)

And despire my grasp of the French language I'm neither French, Belgian, Swiss or Canadian.

Wouter

WHAT is with the negative pictures? Someone's photoshop license should be revoked.

Looks like they have tried to obfuscate them for some reason. I dont understand why tough.. But it's fun to see that more manufacturers enter the F-18 scene. Competition is good (to a certain degree).

Wouter: Why canadian??

A fair few Canadian's speak French !

Where are the Belgian sailors on this forum anyways?? Am I the only one representing our Kingdom between all the Dutchies, Frenchies and other bigger neighbours? Where are you all, countrymates?

Or I do not understand or I feel a big sad to see so much agressivity and negative words. I'm not very old it this forum but I can already see that if you are not in the mould... then you better be carefull when providing information... "Domage".

Catfan, if the Bimare F18 will see the daylight and become a great boat, then you had a good idea to post these pictures... otherwise you made a terrible mistake (at least in this forum).

Hope objectivity and friendliness is also part of this forum,

Jr (Jean-Richard Minardi from H2O-Sensations in Geneva - Switzerland).

Now I hope that every person who are making critisims are at least Top builder or World champion in Regatta.

Relax - who made fun of the boat? We only made fun of the fact that Bimare releases these "negative image" processing on all the "top secret" looking photos they release. All that is silly and makes it look like they're trying to hide something. Add to that that there is some other hull (on a wheeled dolly I might add) that they didn't want in the pictures but didn't take the effort to wheel out of the room is comical.

Nobody made fun of the hull shape or the fact that it is under construction - we all love to see build pics. Wouter made some harsh comment about how you can't expect to jump into F18 out of the box with a new boat and do well...while there might be some validity to that it was one person. It's terrific that yet another manufacturer has jumped into F18.

Jake,

I'm relax, do not worrie. I just feel that when you try to be "creative" (that may not be the most appropriate word) I see people that are "Pillar" of this forum making comments that can be taken as "Serious" from people that are coming in this forum to get your great experience and learn from it.

And this is one of my major reason to come and write in it.

Catamaran builder (at least the big majority except the two first one HC and Nacra) are building boats with passion... and sometimes makes errors. For information, MattiaSport in Italy it's 6 people. Bimare are less than 20, Boulogne, Ventilo are less and 6...

Jake, Thanks for bringing to the light the fact that Bimare is always building boats with that type of secret... because I did not know.

and finally, I'm relax and would love to have a beer (or even more) with all of you and then have fun on water.

Jr

I agree!

...to take out an ad in the magazine if you're going to use the forum to advertise?

Jr (H20) and others like Catfan,

Yes, you are indeed getting a hard time from me, but it doesn't mean much overall. Rest assured that like all others I too think that an extra builder to the F18 is a good development. Personally, I'm thrilled to see Bimare take on the F18 challenge and design a boat that can be properly compared to teh products of other designers. Up till now, Bim has often claimed superiority in various aspects while always staying away from direct engaging the competitition. This combined with the "super secret" "Hush-Hush" sauce that is often employed by Bim makes for comical situations.

We saw it with the Jav-1 (successor to the Bim2000); here Bim claimed to have improved on the basic Aigner Flyer A-cat design. Well, .....

Second was the Bim One-design A-cat class. That went down the drain pretty fast as well.

Then we had the Jav-2 story, heralded as the future of cat design. Most crews are now back on the I-20 and F18's.

And I was then personally told, in 2003, that some 50 Jav-16's were on order and hitting the market in a few months time. And that these "design of future" uni-rigged Jav-16's would blow us (the F16's) out of the water. A few months later a request came in for awarding handicap points to jav-16 sailors as they could never fairly race with sloop rigged F16's. That was the last we heard of that design. Because of overwhelming inactiveness the Jav design finally fell from the F16 class.

Mind you the Bim XJ (or AJ) seems to be doing what is expected of it. Being competitive in A-cat events. So since 2000, 5 tries and 1 decent succes. That is the background on which I comment on the eternal "super secret but revolutionary" Bim projects.

But this time there is indeed no escaping for anybody. If Bim designs a winner then I'll be the first to "eat my hat in public", you can be sure of that. If Bim designs something else then we'll know about it as well.

But I stand by my comment that it is a long road towards a succesful F18 and these pictures suggest that Bim is only at the very beginning of it. Hell, even Nacra has misjudged the time required to come out with a new F18 and they already did 2 of them previously. This is no bad ju-ju towards Bim, it is actually a causionary note. It is murder in the F18 class now. Tigers are a shitload better than 5 years ago. Stiffer, faster, better sails, better foils. And both the Capricorn and Cirrus F18 raised the bar significantly.

It is a hard world out there, as the US F18 vs 18HT story also underlines.

If wish Bim the best with their new F18 design, I truly do. And if you allow I would also like to ask Bim to just present the details of their new project without the fuss. They are not fooling anybody and the forum posters here do know alot about boat design already.

And Indeed We would have a very enjoyable evening together over a beer. I can talk boats until I drop and love the sportr in all and every aspect.

Best of luck,

Wouter

First
Bimare makes good boats that are lightweight, and cost effective.

What didn’t get documented in the HT discussion was that there is a huge difference in HT weight and reinforcement between USA 1 and USA 24. Gale Browning's HT (sail #1) is probably in the 125kg range all up and she hasn’t really modified it. Sail #24 and up were reinforced for the rigors of the Worrell. Bimare added something like 6kgs to the Worrell boats and made them stiffer and stronger. So when an ex HT owner tells a story about a failure you need to consider the sail number in that story. The first 6-10 HT's were built more like Acats, with thin sterns and thin dagger trunks. These boats were not meant to be sailed in endurance distance races with breaking surf and marine life to run over.

Bimare actually made dramatic improvements in the Sail numbers 22 and up, such that I dont know of any dramatic structural failures in those. I used mine (USA 22) pretty hard and I saw the Newport fleet out in some extreme conditions and we all came home under our own power.

Now an F18 is 180kg limit, so if you start in the 135kg range with a well-built boat and add almost 50kg's to it (thats 100 f***fing pounds) I bet you will get a stiff, well built platform. You can add a sh**load of reinforcement when you have 100lbs to play with. And the look of the hulls is that they didnt double the volume as compared to the HT, if I had to guess its 20-30% more volume.

Lets look at the new F18 shape, it looks like it has more freeboard than the HT and more volume in the stern (all good stuff so far) and it has the same sort of bows that the HT had, (also good)

Now if Bimare can design a kickup rudder, and make the boards and rudders solid instead of hollow I think it will be a winner.

Folks,

It is good to see that BIM plan on adding to the growing F18 selection of boats. This is of benefit to the F18 fleet and the sport a Cat sailing in general.

It is both expensive an time consuming to get an new design out. Anyone who makes the effort especially when they are contributing to a Formula Class should be applauded for their efforts.

If I remember correctly BIM released negatives of their latest A class also when it was being develped. It seems this is the way they like to do things.

In my eyes they have put the effort in so they have every right to present it the way they see fit.

Now we have a pic of the hull it would be good if the next pics we see are of the boat sailing. It may be better if those are positives but still it is their choice.
I look forward to seeing the BIM F18 on the water.

This is just the way I see things.

Regards,
Phill

One more thing..

I used my HT in the Ocean, not in a lake, and the rest of the Newport crowd sailed in the Ocean - not in a lake. We had 6 boats and up to 12 at regatta's - nothing major broke.

I sailed in the Sail for Hope the year a dozen or so boats had to be rescued by the Coast Guard, monohulls lost masts, the F40 lost the top of the mainsail, an international 14 was abandoned and smashed to little pieces on Beavertail. We saw 30knts and 10ft ocean swell. The sound of the wind in my rigging upwind was something I will never forget. Two 190lb guys double trapped upwind in 8- 10ft waves - slamming upwind, overpowered and gusty and the boat was fine. The carbon mast was bending off like an A cat mast, the boat felt light and lively and tacking was lighting fast.

My HT came home in one piece, and performed like a champ. My perspective was that it was a solid lightweight boat. Nothing broke

My perspective is that the F18 is easier to make go fast, and that the HT punishes you for being wrong and having the wrong sail trim, weight distribution, etc. I think that some guys didnt like it because they didnt take the time to figure out how to make the boat really sing.

Compared to a I20 the HT feels unstable, and jerky, but thats the combination of the tall mast, light weight and low volume hulls giving you input. I think this responsive feeling was the best thing about the boat, not the worst.

Flying a chute downwind in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Newport with Mark Murray, he was steering I was trimming the chute. The way he carved the Ocean swell that was generated from some hurricane 300 miles away, downwind flying, up and over the big round waves, accelerating down each wave, was something I will never forget.

I like the Bimare HT and have logged many hours on it. I think its a fine boat.

Bill

Bill,

Thanks for coming with your experience on HT.

Wouter, next time I'll come to the Netherlands... I'll call you for a beer.

Jr

And another thing...

I'm still sailing my 18HT portsmouth in the midwest. A couple of things surprised me about the boat. That really tall rig actually adds to the stability from a helmsmans point of view. As a taller boat everything happens slower. The hull comes out of the water and back into the water more gently. It's easier to hold the hull out of the water at a steady height than on a boat with a shorter rig, regardless of windspeed. The only analogy I can give is think about balancing a pencil on the end of your finger (pretty hard to do). Then try balancing a broomstick on one finger. Much easier. The longer lever arm is more stable.

The other thing I have noticed is that, at least with the stock main, the boat is not nearly as good in light air, and is much better in heavy air than I would have expected. My performance in a Portsmouth fleet tends to improve significantly as the wind builds. The same cannot be said of the water conditions. The boat is at it's best in relatively flat water.

The final comment I have is about the rudders. I'm not fond of the mechanism but the lack of kick up is a preference of mine. I modified all of my Nacra 6.0s so that the rudders wouldn't kick up. I prefer rudders that go down when I put them down, and don't come up until I bring them up. Period. I don't want a beach, a shoal, a reef, or a jellyfish deciding when my rudders need to come up.

Sounds like the beach, shoal, reef, or jellyfish will decide for you anyway!!!

Having said that, I can see your point Jamie. The Stealth has dagger rudders so where I sail (Thames Estuary) I've had to learn where all the likely shallow areas are and just be very careful. For example, I now know that I can't get round our club West mark until an hour either side of HW. This means that in the early part of a race (especially if it's the first mark) I don't pin the rudders down, and approaching that mark I just lift both of them (and the boards) just slightly to be on the safe side. The advantage of daggers though is that you can still steer at speed with no problems at all with them part raised

Unfortunately though, to date I've destroyed one rudder stock and on a second occasion ripped both gudgeons out of one transom - easily fixed!!! That's the downside of learning where the shallows are.........