That new wooden Merlin

Toby i hope you are taking the piss about the Albs dude!!

They are made by Ovington for a start and celebrate some pretty healthy nationals attendances as well as world and European champs (Not sure if thats proper worlds or just something the class has picked to call a champs)

Still its a big, active class.

Originally posted by RS400atC Let's hope the market is big enough for the icon, it's about time the no-kite sailors had an alternative to the N12 and the Enterprise.

There are other 2 sailed boats out there...in fact, the market is pretty well served, especially as people choosing a boat without a spinnaker are unlikely to be going for ultimate speed, and established classes have a built in good racing circuit, generally. So with boats ranging from Firefly, Grad and N12 at the small end, through Ents and Tasars to the Albacore for the bigger boned, there is choice, but I think the Icon will offer something a little different, which gives it a chance. Provided enough people who want something a little different don't also want a kite to play with.

I'll certainly be wanting to jump into a demo boat and have a play when it all happens - it would be great to have a fast boat that is truly competitive on small lakes across the weather conditions.

If I made a million (unlikely) I would have somone build a clinker merlin in exposed black carbon with cedar decks. Just think of the carbon weave crossing the stepped planks and the strip decking let into the gunwales, jagged. I have no idea what that is called. All high gloss with red string.

eer I think that is most definately a NO !  (it is a lot more than just hull !)

But if you have a liberal 14' rule (etc etc) you end up with a fairly standard NS type shape.  Design convergence .... you might also understand why we wanted a bit more volume now over the NS .... and compensated by lengthening the hull by 20cm as we are not tied to particular NS rules.

But maybe you could even say the de-planked Merlin ends up like an MG14 without the trapeze or asymetric ...     Does look very pretty though, not sure the ICON pricing target would handle the number of hours required  !

Mike L.

Spot the difference: