Boss and Spice

Not sailed the boss but it has the reputation of being a bit overweight with Topper pulling all sorts of tricks to convince people it wasn’t.

I’ve sailed a Spice enough to be able to give an informed opinion. One thing people must realise is that it was sold as a LIGHTWEIGHTS intro twin wire boat as is basically a twin wire Buzz. Having said this it is still woefully underpowered upwind, two of us weighing in at 11stone each were not solidly twin wiring in a F4 which is pathetic. I remember overtaking one upwind with my 14 with both the crew sitting in while we were twin wiring.

Downwind is not bad though, the spinnaker is big enough to get twin wiring relatively early if you are the right weight for the boat. It is not that fast and the bow rides really really high – but it is still quite fun. In my 14 we were twin wiring and sailing a good 15 sometimes 20 degrees lower than the spice while they were single wiring though. It is so easy to sail, it’s very hard to really get it wrong it’s a great boat to play around with for a few months as an intro to helming off the wire before moving on to something more serious really because there isn’t anything else like it around. You can take anyone with a tiny bit of sailing experience out in it and show them a good time.

My old 14 still feels like a million bucks compared with the unrefined Topper boats costing over twice as much.

 

EDIT: In ref to the Sunsail comment - all the Spice's at sunsail clubs have been retired due to them being "too dangeriuous" for the guests! We resurrected ours as a staff only boat since we were fed up with sailing the RS800 single wire (with Al mast too!) and being hoplessly overpowered all the time

Edited by m_liddell

Originally posted by turnturtle If you want a light weight twin string PM a couple of the cherub folk... they're bound to know a few boats for sale which will offer more twin string fun for lighter crew weights.

Good morning!



Ive not sailed either but have played with a spice kite and its as close to ballooning as you can get without a wicker basket atached...

Whilst I only sailed a Boss once, and hated it so much I vowed never to get in one again, its worth noting that it came second in the ISAF trials that selected the 49er. A very distant second admittedly, but second, and with the rest, including the 5 Tonner (and the B14!) nowhere!

Not exactly, White Formula made the Buzz, Iso and Boss, not too sure about the Spice. White Formula also produced the Hurricane 5.9 and I'd say the Hurricane is a cracking boat. Don't know if White Formula kitted the boats out with fittings though and that's the area I reckon that wasn't so good with the Iso and Buzz

Never sailed the Spice, but have sailed the Boss I personally didn't like it,it struggles to plane upwind and never felt that quick downhill.I'm biased but the 5000 is a great Club boat !