The Tasar v the Icon

Hi Greame

A decent, sorted and fully competitive Merlin will beat a decent, sorted and competitive Icon...  Not all the time of course but often enough.  Upwind ?  About the same depending on wind strength.  Across the wind ? -  Well Icon of course and not much will trouble it anyway on tighter reaches.   Downwind ? - Merlin of course ... that 3rd sail must be useful for something ... some of the time surely ! ;-)   

The handicap ?  Well now you are asking a completely different sort of question and I suspect you know the range of answers you will now elicit already.  As a matter of fact I will say that Icon has attracted a number of likeable and capable oddballs so far  .. not 'regular' guys and crews in most cases and quite a few really really really do know what they are doing.  The boat is quick for sure in capable hands and the same crews will and have often done well in other classes in the past as well.  But  I'm not going to rise any further to this particular point - it has been done to death already.   You should never sail or buy a boat because it has an 'easy' handicap .. because it can and will change ... as many do andwill find out. 

Get into classes you like sailing above all else ... and then race them and enjoy them.  If handicap 'coffee mugs' turn you on then look elsewhere .. but if you like Alfa's on the road you might also like Icon and if you have never driven an Alfa or sailed an Icon ...well it is about time you  tried one or other of them !   life is a bit on the short side for too many compromises.

Mike L.

No explanation is really needed ...  

We now know you have never owned an Alfa at least ...

How was the wind down there today?

It's not what you do with the boat, it's what others around you do with theirs, Ben Ainslie couldn't sail that to beat any of our club Contender sailors.

It's not a difficult boat to get to grips with if you know what you're doing and todays crew does, having said that Thursdays crew was no slouch either. They both made it go very well eventually, it's all in that *jib, but however good you may get you're not going to out perform a kite down wind, or a wire upwind I suspect.

And in Answer to MM we had wind from every direction, sometimes at the same time, it's still a bit thundery.

*If that jib dangly thing were better engineered, there's a lot more you can do with it, it can act like a kicker up wind as well as sail it by the lee Snipe style off wind, but it snags on the line and needs a pulley or some smoother end cap, it could also usefully be a tad longer. We played with it a lot today and it rewards the effort instantly and you can feel it. Changing the leech profile, we may also have to mess with the barber hauler on the opposite side to tighten the 'entry leech first' but couldn't manage it today, so I'm sure there is more to do, but it still won't best a kite, wire, or wire and kite.

Oh and I learned how to tack properly today, can't believe I've missed that all this time, leave everything where it is and sail wrong handed a bit on the new tack before switching, a bit like windsurfing wrong footing out of a strap to strap gybe.


Edited by iGRF - 27 Jul 14 at 9:13pm

Originally posted by Medway Maniac So, light airs, just like up here.  Surely even you could beat a Contender on a day like today.  Ben A. could probably manage it in an Icon in a F.6 - I kid you not.

Yes, i should have, but f**ked up, bad start, hit a mark and had to do turns, I nearly had him but they shortened. He however is a good sailor, loads of regatta experience, and usually wins in the light even against us in the Alto now it's sails are shagged. We beat the other one and everyone else even with the reround of the finish mark (that's two marks we hit, it's quite a bit wider than I'm used to and I always run tight to marks.

Why don't you swan over and take it out for a spin, with Andrew maybe, he likes it as well, spent the afternoon out in it when the wind filled from the south.

Edited by iGRF - 27 Jul 14 at 9:19pm