The latest 'project'

Ha, that would be a Miracle, me in one.

Just wait to see what a cuben fibre double edged kite can do first.

I'm kind of flabbergasted that you seem to be re-inventing the conventional spinnaker...
You'll be using bags rather than a chute next.
Use a 700 kite and be done. KISS.

How much smaller is the icon main though?  I don't feel the 400 main is too big, and with a more 'automatic' mast, bit more area might be the same amount of work?

Icon is narrower and there is far less 'boat' .. GRP weights you know !  The concept is totally about being light and efficient and minimalist.    It is very very simple and we would argue is as elegent as you can get.   You simply do not need additonal sail area and it is about a metre or more less area than a 400 and the sheet loadings are very very light ... it does not need to be pushed/dragged along.  Think about it .. it is about 45kg lighter (or 90+lbs in old money difference !)  and is very easily driven.  Extra area is only of any use if you need it ...

Icon is about the same as a good Merlin upwind, faster across the wind and on tighter reaches but a bit slower on some deeper angles offwind of course - and overall about only 1-1.5% slower round a typical cans course the despite the lack of that third sail.   Without a spinnaker I think a 400 would just struggle to hold a Merlin .. or an Icon regardless of its greater white sail area ....   Not knocking it and I know it has great class racing but it keeps getting raised here.

The real question on this thread is surely what sail area GRF chooses to apply .. and how many sails even.. not whether the hull is suitable.  The MG14* is perhaps a better indication of where he might be heading.  (*An NS14 with the 'extras' but still a modest area of white sails).  It is not 'all' about speed either really .. but it might just be about producing a very interesting craft with good manners and a flexible nature.  Over canvassed boats are probabaly not the future really..... I'm as interested as anyone to see where this one ends up !

Mike L.    


Edited by blaze720 - 05 Nov 13 at 10:31pm

Originally posted by iGRF Effectively a symmetrically shaped assymettrically rigged kite that changes tack by being slid from side to side, then if necessary not going all the way across and being held out to weather by a jib stick, quite simple in the open mind of a free thinker...

I'd never go away from an asymmetric kite if I had the choice. You need asymmetric curvature with greatest fullness at the luff in any sail, so trying to get that out of a symmetric is inevitably a losing game.

So what's the root problem: a sprit kite is superior in every respect until you are running deeper than its ideal. And why does the performance drop off so badly? Well, basically because the shape goes to hell because you can no longer sheet the thing properly because there is no boat where you want to sheet it too.

So is this a new problem? Of course not, we get exactly the same issue on two sail boats with the jib. Logically then the first thing to explore is the solutions that work for a jib, ie the dangly pole and the spar along the foot.

Of course all this gets a bit complicated, but nothing compared to the insanity that is certain double pole kite solutions...

Edited by JimC - 06 Nov 13 at 10:07am