The two Blade F16 who entered the Vele di Pasqua 2009 in Italy did perform very well with a first and second place in there class. They started together with the F18 and Mattia Esse and showed very competitive with finishes in front of the F18's on elapsed time. This was noticed by a great group of the F18 and Mattia Esse teams so they came by for a ride and more information.

Congratulations to Federico Farina and Cassio Barbizzi with there first place ( 1,1,2,2,1,1 ) and Riccardo Ceriani and Fabrizio Boldrini with there second place ( 2,2,1,3,2,2 ).

For the second time in three years an F16 design has been chosen as Alter Cup boat. The Hobie Alter Cup or U.S. Multihull Championship is intended to determine a U.S. National Multihull Champion and is sailed annually on various types of multihulls at various venues. Each year the event invites 20 teams, who have won their area or class championship to compete on identical equipment provided by a single manufacturer.

After the Blade F16, Alter cup boat in 2007, the Viper F16 is the Alter cup boat of this year. AHPC has the rare opportunity to supply their catamarans two years in a row. After a great feedback from last year with the Capricorn F18, this year the Viper F16 promises fast, competitive racing.

The five day regatta will be held in Clearwater Beach, Florida, October 17-21 and hosted by the Clearwater Sailing Center. Already there is great excitement from the sailors to be competing on such a fast, exciting and versatile F16 design as the Viper.

This is a great opportunity for the Viper and the F16 class in general to gain
exposure to a high caliber of sailors, and to the world of multihull sailing. At AHPC they are proud and excited to have this opportunity to promote such a strong and growing class of catamaran and encourage everyone to keep an eye on the regatta.

The demand for the new Viper design has been a hit in the US and all the Alter Cup boats are expected to be sold before the event even starts. The boat offers, as other F16 designs, a unique opportunity to be sailed single handed or double. Owners have been very excited about the boat and the versatility that it offers. They are amazed that this level of performance is available in a 16' boat.

AHPC want to put special thanks on their US Distributors, Fun In The Sun
(Jill Nickerson and Robbie Daniel) for all the fantastic work they have done.

For more info: http://championships.ussailing.org/Adult/USMHChampionship.htm

Dear F16 sailors,

Very often is told that the European international sailing season starts with the Vele di Pasua in Italy.The event exsist for 35 years already with big starting fieldsin several classes like A-class ( 80+ boats ), Tornado, Hobie 16 and several other classes. The F16 was never there and maybe the 35 version of the event is a good point in time to be there. So like Eurocat last year lets give it a go and put the F16 on the map in this big event.

It will be sailed during Easter on 11th to 13th April 2009 in Cesenatico ( Italiy.).

The website for finding the NOR and more information is http://www.congregavilisti.it or just put in Google "Vele di Pasqua"

Hope to see a lot of F16's during Easter.

Best Regards,

Hans Klok

Dear F16 sailors,

It is official now the first Open Dutch F16 Nationals will be held on 8 and 9 of August 2009 at the WVZandvoort. It will be a weekend of racing with 8 races ( 4 race each day ) scheduled and the last race ( 8th ) will be the medal race.

We are looking forward to get as many sailors as possible to make this a good event with not to much wind like we had during the Global Challenge 2007.

Regards,

Hans Klok

The F16 Governing Council received an official request from the Gulfport Yacht Club and the city of Gulfport to organise the 2009 Global Challenge . The F16GC is very happy with this request and did accept this request. We thank the whole team of Gulfport who made this possible.

The event will be hosted by the Gulfport Yacht Club and the City of Gulfport. The venue date is from 9th till 14th November 2009.

The 9th will be used as a practive / fun race and the official Global Challenge starts at the 10th with the last day at the 14th. Racing schedule will follow.

More information will be available as soon as possible.

 With friendly regards,

Hans Klok. 

Chairman F16 Governing Council 

The F16 PR team have created a PDF flyer with information about the F16 class.  Please feel free to download this flyer and print it (A4 folded to A5) and put it at your sailing club. The flyer can be downloaded here.

We congratulate John Pierce with first place in the GC2008. The GC2008 proved to be a windy event with all the drama hard winds bring. John sailed a consistent series with a fourth and third place as his drop races. Great performance!

In second place Joanna Lienti and Geert Ruesink also sailed a very consistent series, also with a fourth and third as their drop races.  In the end just one point differed between first and second! Pretty amazing considering how little time they had to train together before the event. Joanna flew in from the USA just a couple of days before the first race.

Third place was won by Kathleen and Gill from Belgium, our PR committee members. Hopefully we will get som videos and photos from them later on. Full results can be found on http://www.mumblesyachtclub.co.uk/results/2008/f16worlds.htm

 The event was troubled with too much wind, just like last year in Zandvoort. Only two out of the planned four racing days was safe for sailing, and even then there was some breakages. One boat reportedly broke a spreader after the start of race one, but managed to save the rig. Well done! 

The depth of skills in the class is growing, considering the winner of the GC2006 finished in fifth and the 2007 champion finished in eight position on the scoreboard (to be fair, the 2007 champion had to leave early and lost the three last races).

Monday evening there was a meeting where the president, secretary and treasurer reported on the status of the class and the close future. Look for an announcement from the Governing Council to all members on this soon.

We have not recieved reports on the social activites and who did best at the bar, but we expect some war stories both from the bar and from the sailing on our forum presently.

Day three offered rought conditions for the competitiors but the RC and sailors managed to pull off no less than five races. Here are the results and the short but somewhat ironic story from our correspondent.

Well what a fantastic sail.....