Well Jack, glad you managed to get in a test sail - I trust you were suitably impressed?

There is no real performance difference between old/new Stealth F16s. The current Nat Champ (me ) sails a 4 yr old 'old' model Stealth. The hulls are essentially identical in shape apart from some cosmetic changes and a reshaped bow due to the old moulds being damaged.

The sails have evolved though and the newer sails with the squarer top main are proving more versatile than the older smaller square tops. This is particularly noticeable in the really light stuff. However, this small advantage is quickly cancelled out by a duff tack or and older boat being sailed better!!!

The most major change I guess is the new rudders. They are much smaller on the new boat but more efficient. So you have less drag for equal performance. This should make the newer boats marginally faster, but again you can cancel this out if you use your steering too much! In any case, you can always put the new rudders onto an older boat! (Just as you could buy a new large squre top main)

Bear in mind that this is a development class which means constant innovation and changes WITHIN THE RULES. If you look at the rule set you will see that they are structured so that while someone might make gradual improvements over time, it is unlikely that they could gain a major advantage in one massive jump. The aim is to avoid an 'arms race' but still encourage tinkering and new ideas and solutions.

If you look at a collection of Stealths, or for that matter F16s, you'll see that different rigging, fittings, systems are used by the owners. It's a matter of personal preference. Yet the boats have been shown to be within single percentage figures in performance of each other. We have had some very close racing. At last years Nationals any one of 3 boats (two sloops and one unarig) could have won overall going into the last race after two days of racing.......

It's the fact that the F16s provide GENUINE equal racing one up or two up that attracted me to the class and I haven't regretted the decision at all. Someone else on this forum said that an F16 was the cat equivalent of a Cherub  and I have to agree. It's fast, it's light, it's fun - and you can set it up the way you want without someone telling you that you can't use Ronstan or Harken or RWO or whatever for a particular fitting because the manufacturer says it isn't class legal .

So don't get bogged down in the detail of "should I buy a new Stealth/Blade/Taipan F16 or an older F16?".  They really are all very similar in performance until you find yourself regularly near the front of the fleet. THEN - when you perhaps are losing places or races purely because of the boat - despite you racing like some sailing God - that's when to start thinking about improving your existing boat/getting a new one!

Happy boat hunting!

I've got one of the earliest boats.  Originally it had a tramp bag for the spinnaker but I (and I suspect everyone else) has fitted a midpole snuffer.  The new optimised mains are a bit bigger but I suspect may be a little easier to depower.  Conversely, the equivalent jib is tiny.  Spinnakers have (I'm told) become a bit flatter.  They're being flown off a longer pole (or an older pole with an extension added) and are sheeted off the  front beam instead of off the tramp.  Newer boats come with a self tacking jib and they've probably been retrofitted to some older boats too when they've replaced sails.  All the boats have carbon masts and poles - I've not heard of any problems with them.  The way the tramp is fitted has changed over the years and newer boats have different beams (I think the original sections went out of production)  Apart from those changes, most of the updates can be done to older boats - I have a friend who's even canted the hulls on his!

OK, here goes;

I think George has summed it up pretty well....

The beams on all F16s are same section but 2005 boats onwards have a much nicer jib track setup (mainly cosmetic). The spins are now quite a bit flatter, but hey, you're going to need a spin a season or thereabouts anyway? Hoist height can't change much (class rules), but the newest trend is to get it as high as poss and order your kite with max luff length and therefore highest aspect ratio. Early versions of the F16 did not have a compression strut on the forestay to pole section, but I think that virtually everyone has fitted one by now (of varying degrees of engineering expertise ). All the newer boats come with them as standard.

The early masts were bought in by John Pierce but the newer ones (2003 onwards) are totally built by Stealth and are the same section as the earlier ones. They may be slightly better finished too. Certainly, John is a stickler for detail....

Yes, the new mains are fast in the light stuff but also very easy to depower (you do need a POWERFUL downhaul though), just bang on as much downhaul as you think the sail can take and the top feathers just like a windsurfer

2006 boats apparently have a different beam bolt method that should make them stiffer than earlier boats (John P could tell you more) but you have to bear in mind that the Stealth is already acknowledged in F16 circles as the stiffest platform of all.

Finally Jack, if you buy, where will you be sailing?