Hi guys need your help. I really want to get into Merlin sailing but am getting more confused with each conversation I have with people who advise me which Merlin would be most suitable. Our all-up weight would be approaching 27stone, so no lightweights, we are experienced sailors and are confident in our abilities but should we be looking at a Tales or Heaven Sent, Let it Ride or EZ Roller? What would you suggest apart from lose weight!!!

Thin ice if you can find one!

The origional CT - in my opinion at least - can carry a bit of weight, it just needs a bit of wind as does anything! Thin Ice was designed with more crew weight in mind, but everyone who sailed one now sails a Tales so you can make your own mind up there.

From personal experience I've sailed Turner Tales, Winder mk1 and Let it Ride with up to 25-26 stone on board. I prefer to sail lighter, but i'm not too phased by crew weight. I did the windy Looe champs (2009?) in Storm Cloud with 26st on board and finished up exactly where i thought i would.

Easy Roller has a bit more rocker than some of the others so will carry a bit more weight. However whichever you get at 27 stones you will suffer in certain conditions....

The type of Merlin you want is one that works. All those stringy bits need maintenance.
I know a sailor who tried to buy Thin Ice once, but it fell through.

Come to the Rutland Training. Lots of coaching talent there to give you the rundown on the Merlin craft and how to get the best out of them. 
Phil Scott is one of the team and fixes them lots.  I have a standing order with him. As is Chris Martin our second hand committee man, so you can have a look at a variety of boats types from 2xxx to 37xx who are coming.

Might be best to bring a boat to sail as well though.

I am in the same situation. Had a NSM II for river sailing but sold that 2 years ago. Now looking for a boat 3-5k mark (For Silver Tiller/ club racing) but can't decide. Is FRP so much better than wood in terms of performance or is it down to the people in the boat that makes the biggest difference? Any advice?

I've got a woodie! its a wooden Thin Ice,don't know of any FRP ones.  My son keeps growing (hoho) so we're pushing the boundaries of tollerance on competitive crew weight, but I can fix wooden things and might struggle to repair carbon composite hulls as easily, maybe they wouldn't need fixing as much - but there's no doubt in my mind a wooden boat neeeds more care than a modern FRP one, and you might hold off on using it as an ice breaker on winter series racing.
As far as I know, different hull designs might be optimised for different conditions but I'm told the modern boats can be tweaked to be good at most things.  
The best people to advise on how to set up any merlin for your particular requirements will be at the Rutland training event....

FRP tends to be stiffer than wood but the older ones will soak up water over time and become heavy and the gel coap can suffer as a result. Wood takes a bit of looking after. As far as performance goes it really is down to the people inside!

We sail with about 29 stone on board and the Let it Ride on the forsale list is our old boat. We won the 2008 River Champs in her so she does appear to carry weight although according to the design she shouldn't.

I think if you really want to get a boat that carries weight then a Thin Ice is the way forward but they are all wood and quite old now. The more modern designs are all pretty close in their capabilities and I think you will hear several varied opinions when you ask different people as I did before I bought my Tales.

Thinking of selling our Thin Ice it needs work to the decks though email me if your interested

Heaven Sent would be an interesting one - 3585 is for sale, completed from a Tony Lock shell by Glen Truswell but then modified and may well not now be the same shape as 3544 and 3511.  Similar to Let it Ride but fuller under the mast; according to Jon Turner is the Merlin closest in shape to his latest design.  I have never had the ability to make the boat perform to its full potential but on the other hand I have never felt it held me back either.  Glen gave up on After Hours and ended up altering Business as Usual and has always gone for the different approach.  27st is nice to have hanging over the side upwind in a breeze but is never going to be as quick in the light stuff whatever the shape of the boat.  Wide Merlins need to be sailed very flat in light weather and Heaven Sent is wider and a bit flatter than the CT.  We were keeping up with a well-sailed Proctor mkIX river sailing yesterday.

Just put a Thin Ice on the for sale section if your still looking.

There is only one option: bite the bullet and buy a Genii from Jon Turner.

No there is another option get a hazardous from keith callaghan/Laurie Smart

What about waiting until Jo Richards has built his new machine! Look what he did with his 12.

Interesting to note that ALL the latest 12's are Paradigms after an initial splurge of DCB's so what does that tell us

3528 Blue Kangaroo Dead Cat Bounce 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3529 Cat in the Hat Dead Cat Bounce 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3530 Very Hungry Caterpillar Dead Cat Bounce 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3531 Catbert Dead Cat Bounce 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3532 Curiosty Paradigm 3 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3533 Rock Lobster Paradigm 2 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3534 Para-Docs Paradigm 2 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3535 Metric Electric Paradigm 2 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3536 . Paradigm 2 2010 Foam sandwich Double Bottom  
3537 .  2011    
3538 .  2011

That the 12's are moulded in batches

Is the advice to look at a thin ice design still true of an all crew weight of 22-24 stone?

How much money are you prepared to spend?  There's nothing wrong with the market leader CT at that crew weight but there are other shapes out there if you want to be different.

The Thin Ice was designed for me and I was expecting to be sailing in the 25 stone + division. Whilst helms can blame their crews for many things in this case a good 60%+ of the weight carrying requirement was down to me! The design does carry weight across all conditions and also won Salcombe Week when sailed by lighter weights.
I replaced my 'thin ice' with a Turner CT (3505 STerling Crisis - now at Blithfield, in response to the 'where are they now' on another thread)and sailed at similar weight with a degree of success. SO I would concur with Chris MArtin's earlier comments

I used to sail a thin ice and being the heavier crew we had good results in most weather conditions i would look at getting one but i know they sell fast I noted that up on the thread someone has put one up for sale, might be worth a look (I may put one of my children up for sale and buy it myself don't think the misses would like it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)sailing a phantom now but miss my Merlin :-(

Yes, i've noted the Thin Ice but not sure about the deck work thats required. Someone also said that Ron Hall made a couple of Merlins that carry weight, think one's called an Empty Pockets design but I guess thats getting on now. I think that I can run to about £5500ish but does that get me a decent, honest Mk1 Tales?

Yes i've noted the Thin Ice but am concerned about the level of work that might be needed to put the decks right. I can go to about £5500 but does that buy me a decent,honest Mk1 Tales?

The Winder CT's are pretty indestructible so normally a good bet.
The link below is a Mark 1, it will be competitive but could easily be reshaped to a later version if you want to spend the money...

Difficult to say - all you need is one willing seller at £5.5k and a boat that maybe needs a bit of work, new sails, restringing say.

Empty Pockets was one of a bunch of boats built to do something about the perceived difficulty of carrying weight in the straight CT design.  The fact that so few were made tells its own story as they did not set the world alight.  However as it's all a bit fashion conscious it may not be because of anything inherently wrong with the shape.  When Mark Barnes actually took the radical step of getting accurate crew weights for Merlins he found that a lot of people were in fact sailing very successfully at 25-26st in Winder Canterbury Tales boats.  Just before the Winder boats came out & part of the rationale for producing them, there was a real slump in new boats being built so there are not that many boats a little older than the 1st Winder (3554) and those there are are quite sought-after, built by Kevin Driver or Jon Turner as cost-no-object one-offs in wood to very high standards generally.

£5800 is about the going rate for an unmodified supersparred winder 1, some go a little cheaper. Obviously modified examples are worth rather more, a few have been onestringed which is sought after.

The few rough examples i've seen have all tidied up quite nicely.

Our Winder Tales goes quite well with slightly more than that weight in it (all me of course!) OK we are not winning open meetings but that is more to do with skill than weight!

I recall sailing Sterlin Crisis at Abersoch with Stumpy Richards crewing in a bit of a breeze and we just flew up wind and were gradually overhauled downwind but regained the lead by sailing through Richard Whitworths lee upwind! SO in the breeze all was pretty good. On the final sunday race the wind was dropping and as we crept upwind Stumpy suggested I moved back as the bow was too far in - I had to tell him that if I did even more water would come in through the transom flaps - at that point we both felt Guinness to be more approariate!!

What is all this about a new Jon Turner design?  When is it expected?  And how does one get in touch with Jon?

Dark Star sailed in the National Champs last year and there was an article on the boat in Y&Y.  Doesn't seem to have been seen since though

Dark Star is well,happy and living at Parkstone YC :).

So Dark Star is a Genii?  Or something else? Does Jon build these himself?

empty pockets going very nicely on the open circuit in our first year with 29 stone plus on board thank you, carrying weight about as well as anything can be expected too, crew trying to lose weight but doubt he will make the desired 4 stone so we can be on ideal weight and still able to reach the poles

Rob, Dark Star is a Genii and is built by Jon's fair hands. I would imagine he has lots of ideas on how to refine it to make it even better but needs another order to put these in to effect. Post your email and I will send you his number.

I believe another is already in production ?

I had heard a rumour that there was. Also another Hazardous in production somewhere too.