Niels Wade's Icester #28, "Iceblue"

Niels decisively answered the question I am often asked, "Can I use a DN rig on my Icester", with a resounding, "NO!". At least, it did not work out well for him. A DN sail is a full 8 square feet larger than the designed Icester sail, and it's higher aspect ratio, cheater boom, and greater overall efficiency combine to load the fuselage with a bit more force than it can handle. The sides of #28 loosed themselves from the frames under some hard going. He is going to repair the boat, and try out a smaller soft-water boat rig, in an attempt to get in some more sailing in what's left of the season.

The DN rig dwarfs Iceblue. Very powerful... too bad it turned out to be too much for the boat.

Icesters are (just) big enough for two.

The discontinuous framing across the bottom at this point both supports the seat bottom, while allowing the mainsheet to travel under the seat. From there, the sheet runs up to a block, and back to the skipper. Iceblue's frames are all nicely filleted.

  Rear view of Niel's Iceblue, before the deck and "trunk" skin. The two rectangular holes in the seat back are for access doors to the trunk compartment.