Devotti Single Hander

Norbert

HALO is to be a totally seperate class.  Just the one rig, single source sail, mast, foils hull.  It uses the Blaze hull, foils,wings etc because it works well and while it is a low risk option for us at Cirrus/Rondar obviously it is also very low risk early buyers.  We have the proven tooling, the hull is highly suited to a larger rig and carries weight very well.  In fact there are good arguments to say it is even more suited in this version.   There are older 'donor' hulls around that will boost numbers quickly, (the mast/sails are interchangeable) and the rest of the equipment could always revert to Blaze format.  This means low cost entry for many and low financial risk for new boat buyers if Halo does not make it as a widely supported class.  You have to be realistic about these things ....

Blaze and Halo may well share meeting organisation at first but they will not race against each other - no equalisation wanted or intended.  HALO has a 100kg MINIMUM helm weight rule or you carry the difference in weights and it carries a rather large main and will be a fair bit faster than the Blaze.  So no advantage to being relatively 'light' in any wind conditions and a positive disadvantage in most.  They wanted a minimum weight specific class not an equalised one .... and oh yes they wanted it all to be very attractively priced.  

We still expect cautious uptake at first.  That is natural and the target segment market are less likely to make impulse decisions particularly at this time- they will want to see/try first.  We will launch it formally fairly soon and then encourage the emerging Halo CA to guide its format and exact rules from that time onwards - however the fundamental weight rule will not change..

Mike L.  (aka Cirrus Raceboats)

PS - Sorry for Highjack ..... Try them all !