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

i used to love that picture when i was younger. despite all the criticism the boat attracts i wouldn't say no to a ride in those sorts of conditions!

the boss made a few major changes a few years ago, although i think it was really a case of 'too little too late'. supposedly the hull is 85kgs...... which is not that heavy.

As I remember they went masthead on the kite and bigger in order to go faster. As they were already powered up on the kite in most conditions I imagine that they improved the VMG but didn't actually go sny faster in the water, just deeper. So, in a one design, why bother?

The trouble was that the 5 tonner and Boss were 1st generation english pseudo skiffs, based on the very un skiff like pre-amalgamation 14 but the 49er was wholly based on about 50th generation Australian Skiffs. On a hiding to nothing at the ISAF trials really when you think about it!

The 800 was a deal better simply because by then thre was some understanding amongst UK pro designers about how skiff type boats should work, which there wasn't when the original two were drawn.

Lol urm yes i am not seriously considering one....the cherub is far superior and much more fun i am sre but (Turnturtle i have owned one for a fair few months now) i was just wondering what these two boats were like

Originally posted by 49erGBR735HSC ...but it was after 2000 and I think the aim was to rejuvenate the boat...

And instead it pretty much finished it off. There's a lesson there!