Kicker Saga – The End
Back in December I had bought an XD kicker through Ebay. This kicker was made by Holt but it wasn’t like all the other Holt XD kickers. I f you go back to the original post you will see what I mean. Back there, I thought that it was a new design of the Holt kicker, but after some research, I didn’t manage to find it on any website. I also asked people at the club, but nobody knew anything about it.
When I went to the London Boat Show, last month, I asked at the Laser stand and they didn’t know anything about it. When I asked at the Holt stand, they were quite interested. One of the Sales Managers gave me his card and I emailed him a photo of it. He told me that it was a prototype and it shouldn’t had been out in the wild. If you see in the photo, the kicker marked as “New” should read “Prototype”. It has two blocks set perpendicular to the others and this makes it work like the Harken XD kicker. The dis-advantage of the “proper” XD Holt kicker is that parts of the secondary line are rubbing against each other so at some point you cannot adjust the kicker any more. So, the prototype works better but there is a small problem. The cam cleat is pointing slightly downwards, or is not point high enough. As a result when you cleat you have to be pulling down. I got used to it quite quickly.
Now, it turns out that Holt rally want that kicker back. So, they offered me a brand new kicker, from either manufacturer (Holt or Harken) for their prototype. They also mentioned that I might have some problems with the legality of the prototype, since it’s not manufacturer approved, which is true. Last week I agreed to exchange the prototype for a Harken kicker. Earlier today the Harken unit arrived and I have already threaded it and it’s ready for Sunday’s racing. As for the prototype, it’s on its way to Holt HQ.
And I can say that once upon a time I used to have a prototype XD Holt kicker.