The Tasar v the Icon

Hi Marke

Understand your point of view and we can bat this one back and forth for a while I guess   ... but there is one irony to your highlighting Paul Barletts Icon at Starcross I don’t think you are aware of ...  Icon '18' was bought as a used boat and Paul was not the first owner. 

'18' originally sailed at another club in the South-West.  The original owner wanted Icon in order to compete in his clubs handicap fleet alongside a number of Tasars amongst others, especially relevant here given the threads title.    Apparently they struggled in ‘18’ to beat the Tasars on the then used handicap that must have been around 1000.   I'm sure this can be checked.   Naturally he was disappointed and asked for set-up tips etc.

Worse still - he struggled to beat the Tasars over the water.  In the end he put ‘18’ up for sale and fortunately Paul saw potential and a bit of fun in the making !

Now should I or we crunch a few numbers to prove that Icon should have a handicap closer to the Tasar's 1018 based on this first owners results ?   Would this be useful or convincing ?

Perhaps we could take both sets of Icon '18' results, doubling your sample size, and average them ?  Still No ?  Well of course I'm not convinced either.

But it is exactly the same boat we are considering - but now in 2 locations and with 2 different.   crews.    The real question is ... at what sample size (both crews and boats) can we have any confidence in producing a usable useful average number.

We will argue the current  EN is based on far far  too few samples ... you might counter that anecdotally you know of an obviously fast one as you have ... (but as we know sailed by an exceptionally capable crew who would be top end in most dinghy classes they chose to sail in  - and has done so in the past  and even  in cats ! ). 

But is a better interim method possible that avoids all these 'discussions' ? - We don't want the hassle either !  The proposal on another thread was for initial assessment on the water by as independent a person or persons as possible - and for the new class to agree to be excluded from any 'official chocolates' during this period at major events if that is what it takes.   After the number ‘feels’ useful then revert to the ‘standard’ system ... and no more moaning either way.  

I'd sign up to any reasonable initiative along these sort of lines and I suspect many other boat suppliers would as well.  Perhaps I should address that proposal to other builders of new classes if no official body responds.  As you might suspect they usually have a few  ‘watchers’ on here !

Anyway this feels too much like 'work' ...so I'm off sailing now ;-)  Yes that Wednesday evening pursuit at Burghfield.

Mike L.

Having reading this topic since it started and also I am a Tasar sailor I thought it about time I had a little input into this topic.  I am one of the Tasar sailors that the previous owner of Icon”18” couldn’t beat on the water.  Having said that I have to say that that the owner did not give the Icon a fair chance.  For a start he and his crew must weigh about 32 stone between them.  The only times he sailed it were in about 10 knots of wind.  He never mastered the boom sheeting nor the dangly pole and in my opinion he was too quick to sell it, but he too had sailed a Tasar for over 20 years and I guess was a bit stuck in his ways; maybe as I am.  However I have crewed for Peacky when he had an Icon and I was more than impressed as to how fast the boat accelerated, especially on a close reach.

Going back to the Paignton double hander open meeting and the assessment made by Marke, I was quite intrigued to see the results; 1^st Icon, 2^nd Tasar, 3^rd Icon sailed by Mike Lyons.  All 3 helms are multi National Champions so skill factor for all 3 boats would be almost identical, which surely must be a good base point.  I don’t know what the course configuration was nor how windy it was, factors that definitely will affect performance.  As both boats are light planing shapes and as they beat all other boats in their class then I would assume that conditions over the weekend suited that sort of boat.

Just to put things in a little more perspective, I raced in Falmouth week last year where I was trounced by Mike and a few other Blazes sailing off 1032 and would have been beaten by the 2 Icons racing, though they were sailing off 1005 against the Tasar 1018.  I am no slouch down wind but the Icons flew past us downwind with no trouble at all and one of those helms was new to the Icon that week.  I have also sailed against Malcolm Davies a few times and have never beaten him, so I know where I am in the pecking order and I also know where a boat’s handicap should be and in this case I think Marke is spot on with his statistics.