Which F18 to buy

Hi Everyone,

I sail a Hobie cat 18 in the West Country. I like my boat
but I want to do some proper racing. I’ve done lots of
racing on yachts and sport boats so I’m not a new to
racing boats.

I would like to sail a F18 as it seems to be the
catamaran class that is most active in racing at the
minute and seems to be the most fun. I would want to get
a new or relatively new catamaran (I want it look good
when I’m blasting past people) but I am unsure which one
to buy between The Nacra F18 Infusion, The F18 Shockwave
and The Hobie F18 WildCat. Every one tells me the Hobie
F18 Wildcat and the F18 Shockwave are winning everything
but ive seen lots of results showing the opposite.

This is what I think;

The Nacra F18 Infusion looks really nice and seems to be
winning a lot, Coen De Koning won the F18 world
championships (this must mean it’s very good) and won and
Zwitserlaven Sail week on a Nacra F18 Infusion and
British sailor Hugh Styles won the Euro cat regatta on a
Nacra F18 Infusion, this seems to be quite good!

The F18 Shockwave dose not look very nice and modern to
me, it looks very much like a old dart hawk F18 but a
little bit bigger up at the front of the boat. It has won
a few regattas in England but that seems to be more due
to Hugh Styles on his Nacra F18 Infusion sailing the
wrong course (or so I gather.) It did win The Round Texel
Race but from reading the forums it seems the race was a
fiasco and the win was helped by some good luck (not to
put down the winners amazing achievement). Also I have
heard that they haven’t officially decided on a mast for
the shockwave and the sails aren’t very good yet? Has it
been fully developed yet?????

The Hobie F18 Wildcat looks fancy, but it has not done
extremely well at recent regattas and people say it’s
slower than the hobie tiger!!!!!! Also ive heard they are
moving the dagger board cases and people are using Nacra
F18 Infusion masts and sails on them??!! Does this mean
the boat is not finished yet while they seem to be
selling them?? This has really put me off Hobie cat.

Great to hear your looking at joining the F18 fleet,

As to which boat to buy, Im not impressed with boat at all and yes it is slow than the Tiger, also i have heard that alot of boats are braking under the main beam 48 was the last count i heard,

Looking at the Shockwave, it does seem very fast and i believe they won round the isle of wight by 25 min ahead of the nacra, which is quiet an achievement.
It is bloody fast down wind and from what i saw  the up wind speed is there as well. I think they have a selden mast, which in anyones book is a pretty good.

The Nacra has been out a while now and has good speed, but they do have alot of pro teams on the boat which helps for the good results. This year Hugh is sailing like a god, and i think he has finally got the boat up to sorted. Not taking this away from them though.

If it was me i would at this time weigh it up between the nacra or shockwave.
I will say that the Shockwave does look bloody fast concidering they have only just stepped on the thing, cheapest one on the market too

Hope this helps you 

Another very fast option.

 

why dont you give them a ring and find out? they had a boat show price of about £12000 if my memory is correct.

sorry dont know exact price but i would think it would have gone up since its launch price.