Icon

Originally posted by blaze720 You are no real fan of the standard Icon

'racing tool'? With no opposition?

The 59er remains what it's always been, an over canvassed straight rockered one trick pony. The Alto is doing just fine, there are more Alto's racing round here than 59ers and last I heard it was 59er crews giving up on it to buy Alto's. Alto's are a tad big for the lake is another problem.

We, for those joining late in the day, are too light now for our Alto and it is just too damn heavy to manhandle round the beach between us, I'm on record about bloody dinghies being just too damned heavy, I lifted the Icon hull myself, a whole lot easier than i can lift the Alto I currently own. It, also suffers from undersized self bailers, has done ever since I've had it and it's becoming annoying keep sinking all the time if we go even slightly over, I'm also on record as saying it would be a whole lot better as a wash through.

This project other than knocking the bottom bit of a discarded Icon hull will be a different boat. It'll have the mast right down to the bottom for a start, it'll have a hole for a kite and maybe another at the back for a 2nd kite, not sure yet.

Devoti own the Icon, it's their responsibility to market it, I get the impression, that they ain't doing enough here for the early adopters, but either way, I don't want an Icon, I want a three sail boat, a three sail wash through boat the only other thing on the market is the RS500 and I've been there, done that and chucked that particular T shirt in the bin, this will be a better RS500, or a better RS400, or it could be either, I haven't made my mind up yet, just consider yourselves lucky I'm letting you watch me cock something else up, only this time I know a ton more than I did before and I reckon the end result of this will be a jolly fine racing tool for the sort of water and type of course we all use more often than not, plus if you have symmetric skills they won't be lost whilst you try Assym tricks and vice versa.

Edited by iGRF - 03 Nov 13 at 11:51pm

... but what if he is really is on an interesting track after all the 'puff and stuff' here?

I've kept an interest in the Icon as a simple, straightforward boat with great performance on restricted or open stretches of water. But seeing the turn of this debate, if I were a potential owner, the builder/marketer is now taking an interest in people developing trapezes and kites on what was professed to be a brilliant enough platform anyway. Sounds like anarchy to me.

Originally posted by fdsailor Someone has - it's the 59er. Didn't work out for a variety of reasons though, but there is talk in some quarters of it making a return