The hull slips easily through the water, leaving a smooth wake. There is a slight increase in wind; she receives it, considers it, accepts it with the dignity and reserve that only a heavy displacement yacht can muster, and slowly heels in response. "Back-stay in –trim main and genoa–a little cunningham–that’s enough. "As you pull strings, you catch yourself giving orders to ten imaginary crew members who obligingly leap to their stations to perform their duties while this miniature version of a 12-Meter presses the water aside and slowly accelerates, bow and stern waves building up as they would on the real thing. Weight give 12-Meters their special character, their wonderful sensation of power, their ability to carry their way forward when brought head to wind in match race pre-start maneuvers. Those feelings are faithfully reproduced in the Illusion Twelve.
There is no trace of skittishness of a 12’ dinghy; Illusion (that is the name given to the class) responds like a big boat. When you see her out of the water you realize why: She is a scaled-down 12-Meter below as well as above the waterline, with proportionally just a little more beam to accommodate the human body within her elegant shell.
The Illusion is a one-design keel-boat, based on a scaled version of Lionheart, the British 12 Meter Class yacht and designed by Jo Richards and Neil Graham in 1981. These performance single-handed boats offer superb racing in nearly any conditions, by sailors of all weights and ages – with tested racing performance up to Force 6! or between 22-27 knots. Sailing up to 40 knots has been known to happen.