f18 catamaran specs

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Nacra F18 Evolution

The Nacra F18 Evolution is a racing catamaran built with advanced technology, sophisticated design tools and 45 years of experience. The primary ambition of the new Formula 18 design was to build upon the Nacra F18 Infusion’s unique pedigree as the best all-around performing F18, over the full range of sailing conditions for every sailor.

Winner of the F18 Europeans, F18 Worlds & The Worrell 1000 Race!

Most notable on this F18 Evolution: the hull shape design. It has an aggressively styled raked wave-piercing bow with a horizontal hull chine running back into the transom. This design delivers a unique compromise for both sailing upwind and downwind at different speeds. The optimized foredeck in front of the main beam and embedded beams into the hull add extra sleekness to this design. The updated longitudinal beam position optimizes the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic balance between the sail plan and appendages.

Sail the Nacra F18 Evolution

Come sail the Nacra F18 Evolution at our Test Center in the Outer Banks of NC.  Our program, “Try it before you buy it” is a great way to try a a new boat to make sure it is a good fit.  Our test center is located at our partner business  Nor ‘Banks Sailing and Watersports in Duck, NC . Appointments  are required for boat testing and we charge a demo fee for the test. Demo fees vary by boat.  The demo fee will be reimbursed to you if you purchase a boat.  Test sails are offered April through October and are weather dependent.  To make a appointment for a test sail please Contact us to set it up.   

The F18 class is founded in 1993 by Pierre Charles Barraud and Olivier Bovyn. The F18 class aims to provide fair racing for crews of various weights. With the use of two different sail sizes of jibs and spinnakers, crews can weigh from 115 to over 150 kg. Competition between the manufacturers keep the costs at the lowest level. Allowing mixed and female crews to compete on an equal basis in large male fleets made entering in the class more accessible for every sailor. The Formula 18 class keeps offering popular, exciting, safe and fair racing, and also keeps on growing and evolving.

International Formula 18 Class Association

Standard Configuration

• Designer: Nacra/Morrelli & Melvin
• Glass foam sandwich FRP epoxy resin
• Carbon daggerboard
• Carbon kick up rudders
• 1:10 main sheet system
• 1:16 Cunningham
• 1:4 Jib Cunningham
• Harken hardware
• Tapered Spin Halyard
• Nylon spinnaker
• Pentex sails
• Jib Self Tacker
• Wing trampoline with out kickers
• Fixed Carbon tiller extension
• Shroud and forestay with adjustable turnbuckle
• Foot straps
• Deck sweeper sail
• Adjustable trapeze system
• Full boat cover and mast cover

Option/add on

• Chicken Line System

SPECIFICATIONS

Pricing Does not include shipping.  Shipping available upon request

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East Coast Sailboats, Inc: 104 Shores Avenue, Point Harbor, NC 27964

Tel: 252-489-3491

• Wed. Sep 18th, 2024

US F18 Catamaran Class Assn., Inc.

While Formula 18s have enjoyed a surge in popularity in recent years, the state of the class today is the result of growth and development since the class’s founding in 1985. F18s are sailed by a very broad spectrum of people of all ages, from professionals to club racers and recreational weekend sailors.

Today’s F18 is a fast, sophisticated race boat. It is also a very stable platform—one that is every bit as fast as other high-performance small boats, yet much more forgiving to drive and much more amenable to the time and budget limits that face the vast majority of sailors. With a minimum of sail controls, together with the self-tacking jib, crews can focus more on driving, boat handling, and tactical options instead of the subtle nuances of coaxing an extra tenth of a knot of boat speed from a spaghetti pile of control lines.

The F18 is not a strict one-design class, but it is a class where innovations in design are subject to strict constraints. In addition to setting a minimum all-up weight and limiting length, beam, and sail area, the class rules lay out the following conditions:

• hulls cannot include carbon or other exotic materials
• all spars must be of aluminum and may not be tapered
• daggerboards must be symmetrical (no curved daggerboards) with a maximum length
• crossbeams, rudder stocks, tillers, and the tiller crossbar must be aluminum
• apart from some fittings, carbon is permitted only in daggerboards, rudder blades, and the tiller extension
• standing rigging must be stainless steel
• sail area is measured by combining the surface area of the wing mast with the square footage of the sail fabric itself (mast sections with longer chord lengths must support sails with less cloth)
• differences in crew weight are equalized via requirements that lightweight crews (less than 330 lbs. combined) use corrector weights

The Formula 18 rule has proven highly successful at building the kind of class it intended. Over time the F18 class has shown itself capable of carrying out the critical balancing act of, on the one hand, fostering design innovation and, on the other, ensuring the competitive longevity of the boats. Today’s stock factory boats from any of the major builders benefit from the expertise of some of the world’s most talented yacht designers. They incorporate levels of technical innovation that are often well beyond those of larger, slower, and much costlier monohull classes. Nonetheless, older F18s have shown time and again that they can successfully compete with the latest designs. Dr. Martin Fischer, who designed Hobie’s F18, the Wild Cat, put it this way : Especially in an up and down regatta with lots of participants the skill of the sailors plays a very important role. This becomes even more important in strong winds, when boat handling becomes an issue. In the F18 the speed difference between a fast boat and an average boat is of the order of a few percent. This relatively small advantage is not sufficient for an average crew to beat a top crew.

Boat Specification:

• maximum length: 5.52 meters (18.11 feet)
• maximum width: 2.6 meters (8.53 feet)
• minimum weight (ready to sail): 180 kg (396 lbs)
• maximum mast height: 9.15 meters (30 feet)
• maximum mainsail + mast area: 17 m² (183 sq ft)
• maximum jib area: 4.3 m² (46.3 sq ft)
• maximum spinnaker area: 21 m² (226 sq ft)
• Crew: 1 skipper and 1 crew with minimum combined weight: 115 kg (253 lbs)
• Teams weighing less than 150 kg (330 lbs) combined shall carry extra weight equal to half the difference between their actual weight and 150 kg (330 lbs).

The most up to date class rules can be found on World Sailing’s website.

There is also a great article in Wikipedia describing the history of the class in more detail.

In case you missed it

2024 f18 americas championship, 2023 annual general meeting, seesaw battle at north american championships, q&a with ravi parent.

Formula 18 (F18)

Class contact information.

Click below

Class Email

Class Website

One-Design Class Type: Multihull

Was this boat built to be sailed by youth or adults? Both

Approximately how many class members do you have? 90

Photo Credit:St Bart Cata Cup 2018 Round the Weather Mark

Photo Credit: St Bart Cata Cup 2018 Start

Photo Credit: St Bart Cata Cup 2018

About Formula 18 (F18)

The F18 class aims to provide fair boat for boat racing without handicaps on catamarans from various manufacturers and different designs within a “box” formula rule and for crews of various weights. Competition between boat manufacturers and sail makers keep costs very competitive and the competition is very close. Racing with upwind speeds of 11-13 knots and downwind speeds of 18-20 kts makes the racing very exciting. Allowing mixed and all female teams to compete on an equal basis fleets makes entering the class more accessible for every sailor. The Formula 18 class keeps offering popular, exciting, safe and fair racing, and also keeps on growing and evolving. The boat was designed for both distance “raid” racing and standard around the buoy multiple race events. There are major continental and world championships annually often with 100 to 160 catamarans entered.

Boats Produced: 500

Class boat builder(s):

Cirrus (France), Falcon (USA), Goodall (Australia), Nacra (Netherlands), Scorpion (Poland), Windrush (Australia)

Approximately how many boats are in the USA/North America? 200

Where is your One-Design class typically sailed in the USA? List regions of the country:

Arizona – Phoenix; California – Long Beach, San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Francisco; Florida – Clearwater, Sarasota, Key Largo; Hawaii – Oahu; Maryland; Massachusetts – Boston, Michigan; Rhode Island – Newport, Utah – Salt Lake City, Wisconsin, Washington – Seattle;

Does this class have a spinnaker or gennaker? Yes

How many people sail as a crew including the helm?  2

Ideal combined weight of range of crew:  300-380 lbs; minimum combined crew weight 330 lbs (150 kg) otherwise carry 1/2 pound lead for each pound underweight

Boat Designed in  1995

Length (feet/inches): 18′

Beam: 8’5″

Weight of rigged boat without sails: 396 lbs (180 kg) minimum required weight with sails

Draft: Approximately 5 ft but varies by type of F18. Boat has two daggerboards which can be raised when in shallow water.

Mast Height: 30′

Back to One-Design Central

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Nacra F18 Infusion

Sailboat specifications.

• Last update: 20th March 2020

Nacra F18 Infusion's main features

Nacra f18 infusion's main dimensions, nacra f18 infusion's rig and sails, nacra f18 infusion's performances, nacra f18 infusion's auxiliary engine, nacra f18 infusion's accommodations and layout.

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Published on September 23rd, 2019 | by Editor

Formula 18 Class: Evolve or Die

Published on September 23rd, 2019 by Editor -->

The success of one design racing rests largely on critical mass. There may be a lot of boats of a type, but if they are not in close proximity, convenient one design racing can’t occur. And if it isn’t convenient, it won’t thrive.

But what if different boat types, with similar characteristics, could come together and race on equal terms? The Formula 18 Class had that objective when the parameters were developed in 1993 to offer popular, exciting, safe, and fair racing in 18-foot catamarans.

The class’ further objective was to keep development under control, keeping it a non-foiler, and maintaining a good balance between cost and performance. By being open to any manufacturer, the competition keeps costs to sailors to a minimum… right?

While right in general, any class organization that has some degree of “openness” becomes open to efforts that try to build a better mousetrap, err, 18-foot catamaran. And once that happens, the effort to offer a level playing field tilts toward those spending money for the better boat.

This all came to mind with the pending launch of the newly developed Nacra F18 Evolution, which according to Nacra Sailing, hopes to improve on their previous boat – the Nacra F18 Infusion – to be the best all-around performing F18, over the full range of sailing conditions for every sailor.

Why do it otherwise, right? When there were no Nacras in the top 20 at the 2019 F18 Worlds , and the Exploder Scorpion dominated with 8 boats in the top 12, it’s time to evolve or die.

Here’s the background on this new boat:

The design program of the Nacra F18 Evolution started at the 2018 F18 World Championship in Sarasota, USA. Morrelli & Melvin Naval Architects Ferdinand van West (2 time F18 World Champion) and Pete Melvin (Olympic sailor) teamed up to sail the Nacra F18 Infusion.

With Nacra Sailing owner and technical director Peter Vink’s coaching, the duo finished their first event in 6th place. Inspired by this experience, they brought back a wealth of data from the event which they applied directly to the drawing board. This is how Nacra Sailing teamed up again with their long-time development partner Morrelli & Melvin to set its goals in this ambitious project. These parties have a long history together, having done many successful projects such as the Nacra F18 Infusion which was launched in 2006.

This relationship also includes the development of the Olympic Nacra 17 which has changed the face of sailing by becoming the first Olympic sailing class to introduce hydrofoiling.

The hydrodynamic characteristics of the Nacra F18 Evolution’s hull shape are completely revised and benefit from the latest design tools used by America’s Cup teams, analyzing the performance of dozens of hull shape iterations in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations.

Since their involvement in the last three America’s Cups, Morrelli & Melvin have invested in using NUMECA’s FINE/Marine CFD software for design optimization. Utilizing high performance computing resources and advanced performance prediction simulators to add fidelity to race model analysis.

Most notable, the Nacra F18 Evolution’s hull shape design, has an aggressively styled raked wave-piercing bow with a horizontal hull chine running back into the transom.

This elegant solution cleverly distributes the volume and contour curvatures desired for each dynamic condition and delivers a unique compromise for both sailing upwind and downwind at different speeds. The optimized foredeck in front of the main beam and embedded beams into the hull add extra sleekness to this design.

There was a careful focus on the platform configuration, which features an updated longitudinal beam position to optimize the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic balance between the sailplan and the appendages. This has been further enhanced by a new high aspect ratio rudder design, refining wetted area, and updates to the hydrofoil sectional shape to the latest developments.

Close collaboration with the aerodynamic sail design of Performance Sails has ensured an optimized sailplan which features the regatta proven deck sweeper mainsail and an optimized jib design tailored to the new mainsail.

The Nacra F18 Evolution will make its F18 Worlds debut at the 2020 Formula 18 World Championship in Formia, Italy, and is available for order with first deliveries starting in February 2020.

Tags: F18 , F18 Worlds , Formula 18 , Formula 18 World Championship , Nacra Sailing

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Measurements

Length 5.52m (18’)

Width 2.60m (8′5″)

Mast length 9.15m (30’)

Boat weight 190kg (418 lbs)

General use

Class Racing Sport

Standard Configuration

1:16 Cunningham system 1:4 jib Cunningham system 1:10 mainsheet system 2 person trapeze system Fully Harken® equipped Fixed aluminium tiller extension Kick-up rudder system FCS Package & F18 Class legal kit (optional)

Fully battened mainsail and jib Radial panel layout for optimal load distribution High quality Pentex ® cloth for mainsail and jib Decksweeper configuration (optional) Aluminium boom

Made by Performance Sails Large window Radial panel layout for optimal load distribution Fully battened Polyester scrim laminated cloth with white stitchings and black batten pockets Fibre foam tapered battens

Made by Performance Sails Large window Radial panel layout for superb load distribution Fully battened Polyester scrim laminated cloth with white stitchings and black batten pockets Fully tapered battens

Made by Performance Sails Radial panel layout for superb load distribution Nylon cloth (optional in polyester) Available in 3 colours (red, white & blue) Snuffer patches in spinnaker Hardware Composite snufferring Snufferbag Aluminium bowsprit High quality ropes      Harken ® running blocks and cleats

Glass foam sandwich FRP epoxy resin Pro-grip deck pads Integrated beam bedding Aluminium front & rear crossbar Inspection hatches High quality stainless steel rudder gudgeons Open daggerboard cases for adjustable rake & daggerboard swapping Foot straps (optional)

Made by Performance Sails Grey UV resistance mesh Integrated storage bag Outkickers (optional)

Other hardware

Fully equipped with Harken ® running blocks and cleats Low stretch stainless standing rigging with special teardrop terminals High quality ropes Nacra kick up rudder system      Carbon reinforced high aspect rudder blades Carbon reinforced straight daggerboards Aluminium rudder castings with precision bearings Rudder covers Aluminium rotating mast (optional in carbon) Specially designed wing section Spinlock ® Cunningham blocks Waterproof Rotating mainsail hoist connection for better performance Mast cover

Accessories (optional)

Road trailer Full boat cover Stern supports Beachwheel ® launch trailer  Country code with sails

1:16 Cunningham system 1:4 jib Cunningham system 1:10 mainsheet system 2 person trapeze system Fully Harken® equipped Fixed aluminium tiller extension FCS rudder system FCS Package & F18 Class legal kit 

Fully battened mainsail and jib Radial panel layout for optimal load distribution High quality Pentex ® cloth for mainsail and jib Decksweeper configuration  (optional) Aluminium boom

Fully equipped with Harken ® running blocks and cleats Low stretch stainless standing rigging with special teardrop terminals High quality ropes Nacra FCS rudder system   Carbon reinforced straight daggerboards Carbon reinforced high aspect straight rudders Carbon reinforced Z-daggerboards Aluminium rudder castings with precision bearings Rudder covers Aluminium rotating mast (optional in carbon) Specially designed wing section Spinlock ® Cunningham blocks Waterproof Rotating mainsail hoist connection for better performance Mast cover

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International Formula 18 Class Association

Official website for the International Formula 18 Class Association.

Class Rules

Always go to the dedicated F18 page on World Sailing website to get the latest info. Please note that Cloth List is now published as Appendix D in the Class Rules.

Revision History