Designed by Phill Brander and Ian Marcovitch, the F16 Blade was developed specifically to fit the F16 rules. The F16 concept was developed to be extremely fast, light weight, gennaker rigged boat that is not only competitive with much larger designs, but fun and easy to sail. The Blade takes this concept a few steps further by utilizing advantages in modern hull shape technology and adapting a few other of the designers’ own innovations to truly optimize a lightweight 5 meter (16’-4”) platform.

KEEL – The keel is shaped to provide a component of dynamic lift while sailing. Because of the boat’s light weight, this is especially noticeable when attempting to power up on a reach or off the wind under spinnaker.

VOLUME DISTRIBUTION – As with most modern hull shapes*, the Blade’s volume is carried very low. This is to lower the wetted surface resistance and when sailing, it provides the feeling of just skimming the water surface. The distribution is also optimized such that while sailing, it is extremely pitch resistant and very easy to sail at optimum hull trim. 16-foot boats are famous for pitching, especially in waves. The proportions in the Blade’s hull shape makes you feel like you are sailing on a boat with hull much longer than they actually are.

CREW WEIGHT – By combining the advantage of already carrying the preponderance of the hull’s volume low and by making a slightly higher freeboard hull, the designers were able to drastically improve the load carrying range of this platform without being a detriment to the way it sails.

RIG – The Blade is designed to fully optimize the F16 framework: Wing mast, Square top sails, Standard spinnaker, fully battened self-tacking jib, etc. And while it is a performance boat designed for speed and fun, the clean deck layout and easy to use control lines make this a boat you will not be afraid to take out in a broad range of conditions or with your kids and family.

BOW - The reverse bow also helps with the creation of a hull shape that provides more lift in the horizontal plane when heeled. That is, when heeled the additional lift to windward makes it feels like it wants to climb towards the wind without loss of speed. In some cases it seems to accelerate while doing this. The reverse bow assists with the creation of the hull shape that is narrower at the deck and therefore wider at the water line for its full length.

When this shape is heeled , the leeward side of the hull stands more perpendicular to the water’s surface and the hull becomes an asymmetrical foil type shape that creates more lift to windward than a conventional shaped hull. This provides the Blade with great windward performance and allows the boat to remain well balanced down wind with the spinnaker flying. Of course the hulls are perfectly symmetrical so the shape has none of the disadvantages of the asymmetrical shaped hull, just the advantages.
The boat has a great feel when sailing and anyone that gets a chance to take one for a test ride should do so. Come experience the feel that we have tried to put into words.

For more on the designers’ comments, go to F16 Class web site (www.formula16.org)

What we are calling the Modern Hull Shape is most often referred to as “wave piercing”. It is typically identified by the reverse rake bow and first popularized by the German Flyer. The term wave piercing is somewhat of a misnomer, as the very high fineness ratio of virtually every make of beach catamaran makes them all technically wave piercing. The real difference in the newer designs can be found in the way the volume is distributed. The concentration of volume is moved very low in the hulls. In general, this results in lower wetted surface and superb performance in flat water. The volume being low also has the advantage that it is “active”. Destroyer bows and large decks used to prevalent to provide reserve buoyancy in pitching conditions. The fallacy in this thinking was that once the boat reached the point of utilizing its “reserve” buoyancy, it was so far out of proper trim that it did not matter. Having active volume and a reverse bow to reduce windage, means that the boat is going to be less prone to pitching in the first place. In addition, while sailing in waves, it has the feel of having a much longer water line.