Cirrus Icon Development

WE are not going to show everything that could be photographed at this stage anymore than other manufacturers would ! (hence just showing the tooling now and plug shots earlier here).    If everything was shown that could be revealed there would be nothing to 'launch'  that was truly 'new' news in due course.  Icon was always going to be superb and 'just right' does take time - you launch on a tough market with a hastily finished /specified boat at your peril ...

As has been stated several times previously rig development has run over the Summer on a hybrid hull.  We are running a few weeks later than origianlly planned but frankly we are working to our own set deadlines and this does not call for pre-production testing before the end of December anyway.  Given the extensive programme of the last 7 months in the hybrid version this is really just fine tuning now.  With luck we should even have Icon(s) at the Battle of the Classes race in Mid Jan at the end of the London boat show ... they are already entered in case it is the right time !

Giraffe and anyone else interested will be able to try rather than speculate very soon ..... 

Mike L.  (aka Cirrus Raceboats)

This one is a few days old (deck and hull are now as one), but is the first picture of an actual boat, rather than tooling.  If you look carefully you can just make out the non-slip.

Vinylester or epoxy in the end?

... both are being assessed.  The philosophy is that if it needs to be epoxy it will be and if not considered necessary after full water tests vice versa - nothing on ICON will be there unless it totaly satisfies the 'function' ticket.  We are going for the full carbon low profile rig because it provides in bundles on handling and performance requirement.   On the other side of the calculation no clear resined mast (it is in white) as they are a pain to maintain, no marginally useful controls etc etc.  It might be a bit spartan to some tastes but it is and will be quick. And ALL UP sailing weight will be 75kg ish ... Icon is not a small boat.  We could go lighter as well but do we need to ?

Mike L.  (aka Cirrus)

To put 75kg in context, the similarly sized RS400 is quoted as 129kg all up. That means that for every boat length you sail you push aside 54kg less water. That's like carrying 95 pints of Guinness (which is virtually a keg!), or for Laser squaddies, 160 cans of diet coke!

Do you know, I never thought of it like that, displacing water. But, are hulls not designed to be efficient at a certain displacement giving water line length and width. If the boat was lighter than its designed all up weight with crew would that not effect its performance adversely? Surely weight would not be everything?