Icon

You only want 'class' racing, because you've been sold class racing all these years and in point of fact the growing sectors are those boats that have an artificial handicap advantage that encourages purchase by the 'black' sheep with characters unlikely to afford them success in class sailing anyway.

There is no equality in class racing, never will be, all the time body shapes and weights are unequal, so the main tenet of class racing is built on a lie.

The reason those two boats have not garnered sufficient interest is purely financial, neither organisation has the financial clout or physical resources to build a class, to do so, you need numbers, twenty or thirty boats built at risk and placed in the market via artificial 'championships' or events, then sold off cheap after the event, then done again and again until a critical mass of sailors prepared to travel genuinely is amassed. I know this I've done it, along with colleagues who built the IMCO class and took it to Olympic acceptance, it took ten years, and three board versions from 82 - 93. Then the class once it was self determined, quickly self destructed by not accepting further necessary change.

It's not difficult to build a 'class' all it takes is time and money.

Now these two, I don't know that much about the Icon, given I'm about to throw a spanner in the works anyway, but the Alto has a few genuinely owned boats now, not enough to set the world on fire, but it has in my time in difficult circumstances, slowly grown, but it has disadvantages, the worst of which being it's a double hander which I wouldn't mind betting are more in decline than single handers simply because of the lack of crews which I put down as much to the lack of equality in the team designation in favour of helms all the time as much as lack of human cohesion these days.

Then there is of course the fact that joking aside, there is an inbuilt culture of luddism and herd behaviour encouraged by the vested interest of the established classes and those that would profit from them.

There, that's about it, now I'm off to see about putting a kite and a wire on an Icon..

Edited by iGRF - 01 Nov 13 at 9:07am

Originally posted by Jeepers Icon and Alto have yet (like many great designs before them) to sway the luddites and sheep.

"Sheep mainly or luddites ..."

Sadly luddites, sheep, and sales determine what is good/successful boat development, not members of this forum, however well qualified! That's life. Icon and Alto have yet (like many great designs before them) to sway the luddites and sheep.

Originally posted by Do Different Somewhat puzzled by the criticisms levelled at both the Icon & Alto.[Sheep or Goat, take your pick.

Sheep mainly or luddites and it is they precisely who slow development of classes like the Icon, Alto, with their 'advice' ooh if it hasn't got a class don't buy it, kind of dingy catch 22 really and the ultimate last gasp of the class system, which is f**ked anyway they just don't know it yet.

The Icon is great, well suited to the sea and lakes, light, modern, simple. But with a young family, working away from home and starting a business I simply wasn't sailing enough to keep it.