Singlehanded BOX rule

I have read this thread with some interest and given that the F18 was mention and I am a F18 sailor I thought I would reply. 

The fundamental different with the F18 box rule is that the rules were derived before boat had been build. In the 1990s there was different manufactures both in the UK and Europe who were producing different types of catamarans. It was only the advert of the SCHRS, Small Catamaran Handicap Rating system that the F18 was derived so that manufactures could produce boats to this rule.

Since the class was incepted in 1994 there have been many different interpretation on the rule and boats have developed. The downside of the class is keeping up to date with those developments at a cost. Older boats do become uncompetitive so it is a challenge for the class association to keep the owners with older boats involved. Again in the early stages manufacturers would produce the latest version of the boat and professional jockeys were recruited in to ensure that these where kept at the front of the fleet and results sell boat. This is not some much the case now and new designs are less frequents although there may be minor modification just to keep the class up to date.

F18 in the UK is not popular as on the continent, the French having major F18 fleets. In the UK although the fleets are small it is recognised that the competition is very fierce and tends to attach the top teams some of who go only the Olympic NACRA 17 as a stepping stone.

The difference with the F18 and what is trying to be imposed for the singlehanded classes is that the classes already exist so it will be trying to fit a round peg in a square hole for some of the classes. Those single handed classes that do not perform will be those that drop out.

I like the thought that Cat sailors are viewed at being more chilled out than mono hulled sailors.  

Originally posted by maxibuddah But eventually everyone will migrate to the one that is bound to dominate, then the box rule becomes pointless.

Most sailing clubs, and classes themselves are struggling for numbers and this would have been a great opportunity to bring multiple classes together under one roof and race in bigger fleets

Small boat racing in the UK stretches back getting on for 150 years. In that time pretty much everything has been tried, but circumstances alter cases... No-one can possibly know everything that has been tried, so its no shame to come up with an idea that's impractical. Better that than never come up with an idea at all.

The mob can evaluate any idea against what's been tried before, but changing circumstances will change things. It would certainly be an interesting idea to have handicap events that catered for a much more limited variety of boats. The late SGP was one such, and it would be good to talk to the organisers to get a feel for why it ran out of steam.

The interesting thing about the F18 is not how the sailors see it, but how the manufacturers see it. They seem to be able to coexist in a state of what Ray Noorda called co-opetition. Somehow the pace and cost of development is kept under bounds, and each manufacturer can sell enough boats to stay in the game. In the dinghy market they don't work like that at all: each supplier is struggling to develop a separate class.

Traditionally with development classes two things happen.
The first is that a single model becomeas dominant for a while and few competitors buy alternates. As a result the best sailors are all sailing the Jones mk4 (or whatever) and so the results are dominated by Jones Mk 4s. Then someone comes up with something better, and after a while the fleet all flops over to that.
The second thing is that the pace of development becomes extreme. There appear to have been times at the end of the 19thC in some classes where a winning design would have a competitive life of under a season. Did that mean the rich (few others raced) bought two new boats a year? But anyway such a short life meant investment in tooling to batch produce boats cheaply would be foolish, and so costs escalate beyond all reason.

Somehow the F18s seem to manage to keep those problems under control. It would be interesting to know how they do it, and if there are a selection of UK manafacturers of dinghies who could co-opete [sic] in the same way...

Originally posted by JimC The late SGP was one such, and it would be good to talk to the organisers to get a feel for why it ran out of steam.