160 boats at the Worlds!

The latest on the F18 class and a look at the Nacra Infusion and Loday/White Shockwave

The F18 class never ceases to amaze. It is ironic that at a time when catamarans may possibly have been canned from Olympic competition, the F18, despite still being a relative expensive boat, is seeing pitching up at events numbers one typically only associates with the Laser…

This year is set to be a typical example with the World Championship being held in Belgium, at the Beachclub Duinbergen just up the road from Zeebrugge over 11-17 July, where the limit of 160 boats is expected to be reached. 160 BOATS! Because of this demand, many of the top nations wishing to take part are having to hold selection trials and in the UK around 30 boats are having to compete in three events, starting with Datchet this weekend, to fight for the 20 available spaces.

Since we last personally looked at the F18 class a while back, king of the F18s was unquestionably the Hobie Tiger, helped along certainly by the powerful marketing wing of the dinghy cat world’s most renowned brand and powerfully represented by works sailors such as Mitch Booth and Darren Bundock. Since then the Tiger has begun to show it age although Hobie has just started production on their latest F18, the Wild Cat, that is expected to make its debut in the UK in April.



Remarkably, given that dinghy cats are hardly a new phenomenon, the F18 has seen a fundamental change in the design of its boats since the heyday of the Tiger (above), with hull shapes moving from a V-eed shape, to more of a increased buoyancy flat bottomed-U shape, the first examples of this being seen on the Martin Fischer-designed Australian-built Capricorn when it was introduced five years ago. The new shape relies mainly on the foils for preventing leeway upwind, rather than the hull shape (I feel certain we’ve been through this cycle before?) However, most importantly, this hull shape also promotes planning. The Capricorn also featured ‘Dreadnaught’-style reverse bows with alleged wave piercing ability although we suspect this probably contributes more to a wet ride and cosmetic appeal rather than necessarily any performance advantage. Since then, everyone it seems has jumped on the bandwagon with this style of hull, including Hobie’s new Wild Cat, which is the latest design from Martin Fischer.

Former Tornado Olympian Hugh Styles, now has a ‘real world job’ as an agent for Nacra, who’s new Nacra F18, the Infusion, has this hull shape too. As Styles explained to us: “The boat is a lot easier to sail. It has got quite a forgiving hull shape. For those of us who have been used to a more V-eed Tornadoy, Hobie Tiger hull shape – it is flatter underneath and it does get up on the plane. The Tiger is a displacement hull shape whereas the first time I sailed on this boat [the Infusion] was in Australia during the Worlds and we were going upwind and it was planning and it was pretty big waves and breeze - the feeling of getting cracked off and going - I’d never felt that in a cat before: Planing upwind - that was ‘wow’. And downwind you can push it hard because it has a lot of volume in front of the front beam.”

While at the RYA Dinghy Show recently there was much talk in multihull circles about the Wild Cat, the focus was on the two boats of the moment being the Nacra Infusion and White Formula’s newer Shockwave.

The Infusion was introduced around three years ago now and after winning the F18s Europeans in 2007 was the most successful F18 last year at the Worlds in Spain, with Coen de Koning/Jeroen van Leeuwen and Franck Cammas/Jeremy Lagarrigue taking the top two spots in them, followed by two Tigers and Styles and crew Adam Piggott aboard their Infusion in fifth.

The Infusion was designed by multihull gurus Gino Morrelli and former A-Class World Champion Pete Melvin in California. While the hulls, foils and mast are built by Nacra in the US – yes, the Nacra Infusion is indeed built using ‘resin infusion’ - boats coming across the pond are put together by Nacra Europe in Rijnsburg, Holland and sold with a race ready package. They are equipped with Performance Sails, the loft conveniently being upstairs from the Nacra Europe office. More than 400 Infusions have been sold internationally in the three years since it was launched…

The Infusion is also unique in having hulls that are toed out by 4 degrees (under class rules foils must remain in the vertical plane of the hull). Originally the boat was sold with ‘gybing daggerboards’ but these have now been dispensed with. A new boat in the UK will cost you £14,950.

With the exception of French Tornado guru turned designer Yves Loday, the new White-Loday Shockwave is a much newer and a more UK-homegrown affair from Brightlingsea’s finest. The prototype was only launched in the autumn last year and promptly won October’s Grafham Cat Open in the hands of Olympic Tornado ace Rob Wilson.



The Shockwave’s hulls are exceptional for having the typical circular bows (rather than the Dreadnought affairs) we have seen on other White-Loday cats but in particular chines running down the aft sections, Volvo 70/Open 60 stylee. The freeboard on the hulls is quite large allowing the beams to be fully faired in (on the Infusion only the forward one is) and this also allows the beams to be higher out of the water. According to Rob White, the boat is the driest dinghy cat he has ever sailed… It is also one of the lightest F18s, the first boat launched coming in 7kg under the 180kg minimum weight allowed by the class.

“The biggest thing that strikes you is that it is dry,” says Rob White. “So the crew can sit to leeward in the light to medium stuff. The second thing is that it is incredibly easy to tack. When Rob Wilson used it at Grafham he had so much confidence, he port tacked the fleet and then tacked back.”

While Nacra supply their boats with Performance Sails, the Shockwave comes with North Sails (who Rob Wilson now works for) who have now transferred all their Tornado Olympic know-how across to the F18 class.

Another key benefit of the Shockwave is its price currently £12,750, which thanks to the exchange rate and introductory price is substantially less than the competition. The Shockwave is rolling into production at present with five boats expected to be competing at the Eurocat event in Carnac at the beginning of May.

So generally in design terms the new designs are closer to hitting the limits of the F18 box rule whether it is in terms of the minimum weight, maximum mast height and aspect ratio or even pushing the rudders out to the maximum allowed distance from the transom to thereby minimise their size. Typically for example all the new F18s have very high aspect sail plans with approaching the maximum amount of square top (1m) allowed for the mainsail, although the larger you go the harder the top of the leech is to keep under control.

The end result plans not only downwind but also upwind and the technique for using the boards has developed so that as speed increases as does the amount of lift developed by the foils, they are hoisted up slightly to reduce drag.

One of the surprising aspects of the class is that no smart arse has come in with a big budget, thrown a lot of resource at an F18 and built a custom one-off that cleans up, as this hasn’t been banned by the rule and in our opinion definitely should be. The class had a taste of this last year when Groupama skipper Franck Cammas pitched up complete with shore team and PR man and was performing typical go-faster ideas from the big boat world to his F18 such as Teflon coating the underside of his boat. Prior to major events such as World Championship all F18s are measured but even despite this Cammas showed his profound skill to come home second.

Regardless of this, the F18 has survived and is overwhelmingly popular. There seems to constantly be a diversity of different designs within the top 10 at major events and at the end of the day, as Hugh Styles points out, it comes down to the sailors. Racing is as close as a one design fleet, but with a box rule you get a pleasant diversity in designs.

Another worry is what happens if the Olympic catamaran is reinstated. While a one-design Tornado does seem to be the most obvious choice, the price point and numbers of participants in the F18 is sure to draw some interest from ISAF and at the RYA Dinghy Show, sure enough, we spied both President Goran Petersen and Chief Executive Jerome Pels poking around the F18 stands. However this would be unlikely to be the F18 as the class stands, but one of the existing designs within the class, the most obvious being the Hobie Tiger. What effects this might have on the F18 as a whole would probably not be a good one in the long run.

More photos of the gear on the following pages...
Pages 2-4 the Shockwave
Pages 5-7 the Nacra Infusion