What is Formula 18
Wednesday, 27 June 2007 16:46

WHAT IS FORMULA 18?

Formula 18 Catamarans are fast, exciting, colorful, spinnaker-driven catamarans which are built to a rule which allows all manufacturers to design a boat which competes on an even footing.
In essence, the rule encourages one-design racing between the classes.

The Formula 18 Catamarans are the future of sailing. Sailing a Formula 18 catamaran is like riding the wind.
The boat is crewed by two people. The risk of capsizing is always around the corner.

You can compare Formule 18 sailing with Formula 1 in motorcar racing.
You can adjust almost everything and small changes can have big effects, so good tuning can let you win the race.
Technical adjustments are improving constantly and different boat builders want their boats to win the race.
Many World Champions and Olympic medal winners choose F18 because the competition is tough.

It can reach the extraordinary speed of 25/30 knots (60 km/h). It is a challenge.

 

WHY FORMULA 18?

Not since the early Plastic Cat days have we seen large mixed fleets of similar boats competing more-or-less equally. Today we have strong catamaran classes, but interclass competition has evolved into a (TEXEL) yardstick competition, where the yardstick can never allow for the vast range of variables which make certain designs more likely to perform in certain conditions. In yacht racing, the IMS YACHT MEASUREMENT RULE has attempted to allow for bumps in the performance curve of rated yachts by including a feature where the wind and sea conditions are factored into the corrected time calculation formula.

There are three options for real competition:

  1. Sail an established international one-design class which has strong National fleets (the choice is quite narrow)
  2. Race "XYZ" catamarans at mixed fleet regattas and hope that we sail well AND have weather conditions that suit our class of boat in order to succeed on yardstick.
  3. Combine 1 and 2, and sail a FORMULA 18 catamaran built by our preferred manufacturer, and throw out the yardstick, to compete on even ground - the first across the line is The king of the castle.

 

FORMULA 18 MEASUREMENTS

The platform is 5.52 meters long and 2.60 meters wide.

- Mainsail 17.00square meters
- Jib 3.45 / 4.15square meters
- Spinnaker 19.00 / 21.00square meters
- Mast length 9100mm.

 

See this PDF-File(by M. Gray) for more F18 info !
 
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