Here the first Blade F18 video. The design now has nearly two seasons of test sailing done.
It is flat water, but the video the better for it. The wind appears to be gusty.
Take a look when the guys push the whole of the leeward bow underwater about halve way into the clip; The boat just sails on without really throwing up much spray or losing much speed at all. The boat just recovers gently. Also notice how there is not much of rooster tales behind the rudders when going for the emergency bare-away. The rudder keep working all through the dive.
But I personally really like the way the hulls rides over the water. There are hardly any bow and stern waves. Even when a gust hits or a the boat sails into a lull, the change of hull attitude doesn't seem to disturb the water surface much at all. Now rooster tales, no splashing.
I certainly hope the Blade F16 is just as good.
http:/
If this link only brings you too the video page then it is the 6th video link from the top.
Now lets wait for the video in big waves and see if the hull still handles it well as now.
Wouter
You mean F18 video.
Sorry, a typo.
Wouter
Wouter,
The boat in big waves looks much the same regarding spray the real issue is getting footage of it to prove it.
I was in a 6 metre power boat (with a 65 on back) and when the wind increased and we got into the rough stuff we had a lot of trouble keeping up and no chance of filming. Darn shame.
BTW:- I sould have posted some credits with the video.
Marcus and Karina are sailing the boat and Chris is driving the power boat so I could shoot the film.
can't get it to work... there are a lot of bad links on that site.
Video file is big so give it time to download.
It is 20 mb and it took 2 minutes on my PC to start playing.
Wouter
i just get a quick window saying it is downloading, but it closes in seconds.
it makes my wmp crash.
and I have every codec on the planet.
Yeah well, you and your PC are allergic to anything that has a link to F16's or Wouter, no matter how distant. What did you expect would happen ?
Wouter
hahaha thats true.
Yeah well, you and your PC are allergic to anything that has a link to F16's or Wouter, no matter how distant.
Wouter
Based on the playback, Macs on Maui love Wouter. 
open it in Retardnet Explorer a window will pop up asking if you want to save or open. Save it to your desktop, then open file with your normal media viewing program.
If you are trying to do this with Firefox, you will run into issues.
I was able to download it and play it back with no problems. I saved it first to my PC and then played it with Power DVD software.
Played fine for me with Firefox, and I can't play a lot of Windows Media Player stuff, even though I have the latest version...? Very nice video!
Oh dear lord...I need to go sailing soon....but damnit...the skippper was slow to bear away and the crew on the spinnaker - it's floggin'!!!!!!! (bark bark bark)....
Is that in fast forward, the video compression, or my beer goggles?
Brain:
If you get a lot of mov video and don't want to deal with Quicktime as I didn't go and get windows mdeia player classic. It will play mov files. Should solve your problem.
Doug Snell
Hobie 17
Soon to be Nacar A2
www.tcdyc.com
The best free-standing video player I have found so far is the open source VLC. http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
I felt a bit sorry for the Mosquitos who looked like they was almost standing still, but they probably corrected out nicely. About the flogging, I think they was pushing the boat a bit higher then you would on a windward/leeward course..
Looks like you can push these new designs a lot harder than older designs. I know I would not want to stuff the Tornado like they did with the Blade.
Rolf,
They were sailing down a river into lake Alexandrina.
They carried the kite as long as they could hence the flogging.
Once we got into the lake (which is so big you can't see the other side) the breese really got up and the chop became quite steep. This was the footage that I would have really liked to get as it would have shown the Blade F18 in its element. But Unfortunately we couldn't keep up.
BTW:-
I got some really cool footage of the AO14 that I will be sending Darryl. That is by far the best 14ft cat that I have ever seen.
Regards,
Phill
Folks,
For those who could not get the video to play I've uploaded a new version.
If you have been having problems and still interested try again.
Hope this helps.
Phill
Saves a lot of time - This is what I get when clicking on the link. MSN Explorer, Verizon broadband:
Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apache Server at thebeachcats.com
How do you go if you try http:/
without the "-" in the file name.
It doesn't matter what kind of boats, blazing past other boats just looks great. Super looking boat phil!
I got it working.... Nice.. but why are the soundtracks always so bad 
Here is a site with instructions to make your own steadicam:
http:/
Very handy..Will take most of the shake out of the shots. I am going to try this out this summer..
Phill,
if we want to carry the kite higher than it's designed for, we let out 5-8cm on the tack line and sheet in. So far we have used this technique to good effect in distance races when the wind isn't too strong (dont try this in anything near trapeze conditions). This small change really alters the shape of the kite and is fast up to a certain windspeed.
Following cats in any kind of chop/waves is next to impossible in small boats. They get thrown around and must slow down while cats power trough the waves much better. What you need is a powerful big boat with a deep V hull (semi-planer?) and a flybrigde, or a motor-cat 
Why was they racing on the lake and not in the ocean? Sounds risky to race on the lake with Muldjewangk lurking about
PTP, I am old enough to remember when the soundtrack (Robert Palmer?) was the hottest thing played in the disco, so it works great for me. I suggest you listen to the lyrics while looking at the different scenes, this is obviously done with great consideration.
Agreed - but why not ease it while in trapeze conditions? We do it often - especially distance racing.
Jake, I have three reasons. One is that it powers up to boat too much making it hard to control while creating a lot of drag once the wind is up. The second is wheter the mast can take the loads. We still have the Marstrøm Tornado alu-mast, and it's not the strongest one around. Third, it is hard on the spi cloth.
We spent probably about 40% of last year's 523 mile Tybee 500 running as high and tight as possible with the spinnaker. I will attest that the loads are quite high - most of the crews hands (including mine) really paid the price. The truely grueling fact was that the spinnaker was adding a lot of drag for the power it generated - we were getting about an extra .2 knots out of it for all the work going into it...but we were racing!
Great video. Can we buy a Blade yet? Any idea on price?
Chappie:
I lost the price email when I redid conputer. Check the forum on A cat vs F16. I think it is somewhere in there.
Doug