Vago in flesh

I have had a vago at my club on the red sea for the last six months and overall found it a good boat. It is certainly better designed then the 300 is is replacing. The hull is more skiff shaped making more room when not out on the wire. Although not ultra performance it is by no means ultra stable. It needs to be kept power up otherwise becomes very tippy as another post mentioed when the kit is up failure to keep the boat flat will result in total loss of steerage. The kite is easy to use and powerful and the rig easy to adjust. Putting it on a car roof seems like a poor idea, it is not a small boat.
Our boat was used most days in winds averaging 30 knots for six months and despite mis-use nothing much broke. Overall a good boat for the money. Like most people my choice would be an RS 400 but plastic boats are cheaper.

if anyone needs any info on living with the vago please get in touch.

ps anyone find the boat show a bit of a rip-off this year, flet like I paid 20 quid to walk around a shopping centre, liked the RYA sail simulator though.

Originally posted by Medway Maniac Every picture tells a tale. In a certain 'other publication' this month, there's a photo of the Minorca Sailing Vago fleet being sailed by their instructors and sporting the most enormous masthead flotation bags I've seen. Nothing so very surprising there - a lot of the latest boats love to invert. But, amusingly, three pages later the same photo appears in a Laser advert with the said flotation devices photoshopped out....

I have "said" magazine and hadn't noticed the "spot the difference" betwwen the wo, will go and study them more!!!

All assymetrics at Minorca have masthead floats and it's pretty much impossible to invert the boats (it's around 400N of buoyancy). All the picos and 4.7 Laser rigs have foam floats (considerably smaller) to slow the rate of inversion as well. 

I sailed the Vago on Sunday and was actually quite surprised at it. As I'm not a great fan of the versitile boats - I was pleasently surprised. There were a few issues that came up with it - sterring. As soon as any heel comes onto the boat the sterring is impossible. Which means when a gust hits whilst the kite is up it is very diffucult to bear away. Also the speed going along the reach with kite up wasnt that impressive, it could be a lot faster. Also if it was made out of fibreglass rather than the rotomould it would look a lot better and sexier. However as a Europe sailor (ex Radial sailor) I think any boat with more than one sail and a trapeze is great fun. It is very comfortable to hike and trapeze from. As a mess about boat its perfect. But I wouldnt buy one for racing - I like to be competive. But i can see the appeal for the intermediate club sialor who wants a bit of fun to build up their skills. Its the best versitile boat on the market!!

PS Well done London  - We are gonna rock just bring on London2012

The Visions at Whitefriars (privately owned) certainly look better put together than the Topper equivilants. They are certainly not as bullet proof as the manufacturers would like you to believe, but do bounce alot better than GRP! Of course, once holed, you can't just stick a patch in, but have to get it fixed by someone with all the right kit. You'd still need a good running maintainance programme. As for the Vago, only time will tell - as with most boats, though, I expect there will be small changes as things come to light through use.