New Hobie F18?

we already did hear it first here and saw a cartoon-esque drawing about two months ago.

Well...that is of a new Hobie F18 coming out of France but not anything about the Olympics. It would be a stretch for the F18 to both put itself in and for the ISAF to put an open development class in the Olympics.

http://www.hcana.hobieclass.com/?page=7923&format=

the cartoon-esque drawing was of one of the three boats, the Pearl. No drawings of the

new

F18

Oh ok I'm an uninformed **** 😛

Thanks

Yes it's more likely the OD Tiger would be selected over a Formula boat.

the new f-18 from hobie is hopefully going to debut at the paris boat show in december. All new platform the only carry over from the Tiger will be the front and rear cross beams. there are currently rumored two sets of hulls in testing with the old rig. new sail plan and mast aren't finallized. but a wing mast is said to be in the works. Will we see this in the U.S.?

taken from the hobie thread
Guys, just for your information, I´m still in Europe and two weeks ago, I raced with Mitch Booth in Hyères and had the chance to discussed the new F18 with Mitch and other guys from the factory since Mitch is really involve in the development.
Around 2 to 4 sets of hulls are already produced and final testing is planned to be by the beginning of November. Famous F18 sailors invited to test the boat: Mitch Booth, Darren Bundock, Gleen Ashby, J-C Mourniac. I was not allowed to see the boat but Mitch's son saw it and he said to me: this is the sickest Hobie cat ever, really modern. I know that they were still working on the mast and sail plan. Only the front and rear beams will remain the same as the Tiger, the rest is totally new. Mitch mentionned that the hull shape of the infusion and the capricorn was a step further than the Tiger and the new Hobie F18 will be the step further than the nacra/capricorn.
Guys, let me tell you that with everything I've heard: Its gonna be a sick and fast boat.
A new casting with a new blade, carbon daggerboard. New Mast. A clean platform and many new innovations. Its gonna be a really modern high performance F18 Hobie Cat.

Whoever wrote that needs to go into marketting.

That's because he's a Hobie dealer!

the new bow
http://www.hobiecat.com/community/viewtopic.php?p=58400#58400

I think they call that clinker built!

It looks like a character in a Circ de Soleil show.

I think those things are handles so you can carry it around the beach. It does look like a mask...Halloween anyone?

I was hoping it would be a bit wider so it could carry lots of weight (Infusion style). I think we need to make sure we open this class up to the maximum number of teams.

The punisher.

If the new boat is faster, then it's P number has to be -adjusted- for open class racing, right?

Tim, you know the drill. If the evidence supports your position the number will be adjusted.

Dave, it's not my possition, it's the builders who are making the new F18's faster and faster, otherwise you would all be racing a 1996 Tiger, right?

And I'm not saying, I'm just saying,

Evolution

should be taught in school...

And I have no idea how P number get -adjusted- anyway, does that latest F18 NA's, where the top boats were all Caps. and Infusions count in anyway? Or is only one boat vs. another, different class boat, finish times that get put in the mix?

If Matt invents a new F16 design and it is clearly faster than all the other Blades, when Matt is sailing it, will anyone ask that number to be -adjusted- too? Of couse they would. That's all I'm saying.

built in anti pitch pole devices? or vent holes to reduce drag?

Bottle top openers?

hmmmmmm

Evidence provided to the DPN committee by regatta organizers.

Open class racing
Wind factors must be used
Only buoy racing, traditional upwind downwind with possibly a reach. The USSailing course card is your guide.

Again, if the evidence supports your claim that F18 has become faster over time then the number will be adjusted.

The only role I see the NAF18 Championship results and any championship for that matter is to show who is your top guns are in each class.

If I were on the DPN committee, I would look at the championship results to determine the top guns. Look at the results at the Alter Cup Championships and see how the skippers measured up, this is about the only place where the top guns in range of classes race each other straight up. Finally I would review all the open class results with maybe a little extra attention paid to the area qualifier which I would then use to calculate an adjustment if the evidence supported it.

There was an interesting interview with Bouwe Bekking over at the Daily Sail (subscriber section).
They talked about the design and how the software which was develop during the AC and mainly applies to displacement hulls where no longer relevant.
Ironically the new design software was borrowed from what the powerboat designers use, and thats where they got the idea to put

spray stoppers

on the bow.
http://bp2.blogger.com/_U6Cp5x-Sbr8/SGjEvRiX_RI/AAAAAAAAD-w/n2TDvpqjzkw/s1600-h/DSC_2792_1.jpg

See, this is why I think there should be an exact distance measured for the course and it should be easy now that we all have hand-held GPS available.

If every

NA's

course were a measured mile (or 1.5, or what ever, but all exactly the same) from A to C, you could easily make a valid comarison from boat type to boat type, given the exact wind speed and the time it takes each boat type to get from C to A and A to C, use that as some type of a rating system, voila, you have a better system, and you don't even have to be racing open class to do it. Just measure the distance and time at each NA's, where the best skippers are sailing their own boats. The Alter Cup is a bit skewed because if the

team

isn't right for the boat (too heavy, too light, etc), or new to that type of boat, or whatever, their times will be signifigantly slower than when the same team sails their own boat.

These guys were way ahead of the curve...

Looks like a couple of prototypes I saw about 2 years ago in various yards.

You know what, I'm done with this. I hate handicap racing and I hate talking about it even more. If you really believe in your system make it happen. If you don't want to put any more effort into creating a better system than hammering on a keyboard then it really wasn't all that good of an idea.

Ding out!

If the boats are being sailed more upright (canting keels etc.) then the whole design, particularly the hull, is affected. No wonder spray rails and chine are becoming popular.

Halloween F18

The portsmouth number gets adjusted when the regatta organizers send in their handicap racing results from their open classes that were scored on Portsmouth. These relationships to other boats finish positions are considered in a database and the first place finishers contribute to the handicap rating and a small (very) small adjustment would happen from one or two race results. Enter 12 race results and the numbers get more refined. If regatta people don't send any results then the portsmouth group has to guess at where the numbers are.

As it relates to F18, the tiger is the ONLY F18 platform that has it's own rating. This is because the Hobie Tiger class rules have differentiated from F18 rules - mostly in the crew weight area. They race under a different rule set and get a different rating. All other F18's race under the F18 rating. If one of the other F18 boats proves to be faster than the others, it will be a minor improvement in speed (as history has proven) - and the rating system will self adjust fast enough to accommodate this shift for the class' potential.

Yeah, but there are a lot of other variables that go into boat speed that you haven't yet measured; wave height, wave direction, wave period, amount of chop, amount of boat traffic/wake, wind speed, wind direction, peak wind gusts, period of wind shifts, range of wind shifts, .... there are way too many variables to try and calculate a performance based system without the boats sharing the same racing time on the same racing water.