South american Laser builder

Dutchlaser

New Member
This week I heard about the laser builder in south america. I've never seen a south-american laser, I didn't even know they existed. I've always thought all the laser are made in England or Australia. My question: Do the lasers from south-america have something special, or some slightly different features than the others? Like the Australian lasers have other colors.
 
I know of the following builders:

1) Vanguard in North America
2) Performance Sailcraft Australia for Australia/New Zealand and parts of the Asian Pacific Region
3) Performance Sailcraft England for Europe and any part of the world not covered by one of the other builders
4) A Japanese builder (don't know the company name off the top of my head) for Japan and some parts nearby,
5) A South American builder (don't know the company name of the top of my head) for most of South America (but not all - e.g. PSE is the builder for Brazil).

I believe that the bulk of the world's production of Lasers comes from PSE and Vanguard with PSA third by a bit. I don't think many boats are built in Japan or South America, probably why you have not seen one of those boats.

On the other hand, unless they have some wild color scheme, I don't know how you would know where a boat came from...

In my opinion, the most colorful boats are from Vanguard, though those bluish boats that PSA built a few years back were pretty cool (I heard they changed color schemes, true?). And the Athens boats did get some attention.

The most interesting boat I've ever seen followed the current Vanguard scheme with white bottom and color from the waterline up, except the color part was some really incredible graphics (and I'm not talking about the '96 Olympic boats, even I have one of those). You would really need to see the boat to understand, quite indescribable and really neat looking. The owner actively races, in fact just sailed the Laser US Nationals at Wrightsville Beach.

Tracy
 
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SFBayLaser said:
The most interesting boat I've ever seen followed the current Vanguard scheme with white bottom and color from the waterline up, except the color part was some really incredible graphics (and I'm not talking about the '96 Olympic boats, even I have one of those). You would really need to see the boat to understand, quite indescribable and really neat looking. The owner actively races, in fact just sailed the Laser US Nationals at Wrightsville Beach.

Tracy

Tracy, thanks for the info on the builders.
Regarding the wild graphics, are you talking about Theo I ? Here's a good shot of his hull
http://www.cedarpointphotos.org/gallery/lasers-2005-04-16/IMG_0284?full=1
 
macwas16 said:
I've seen that boat at Buzzard's Bat Reggata last August. I think it's awesome! Any idea how it was done?

I've seen the 96 Olympics ones and I'm pretty sure the design was printed on some sort of rice paper and was included in the molding process. A clear gelcoat covers it.
 
I saw one of those boats at CORK a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly the owner said Vanguard made 8 of them.
 
Yes, Lasers have been built in both Brazil and Argentina during the 80s and 90s too. The colour schemes were different from the Performance Sailcraft Canada boats, and even sails were locally manufactured by NorthSails with a blue blackdrop for the logo instead of the official red one.
 
The athens boats are awesome-I nearly bought one in greece, but they're 6000 euros! Also, PCA has switched to a tan color. A friend of mine imported one
 
Spence said:
I saw one of those boats at CORK a couple of years ago. If I remember correctly the owner said Vanguard made 8 of them.


Actually I think Sunfish/Laser Inc (the builder prior to Vanguard) built them. They were trying to come up with various wild graphics and they were molded into the layup. There were even a few "rejects" sold cheap while trying to get the process right.They decided it was too labor intensive to build.
 
Also, PCA has switched to a tan color. A friend of mine imported one

PSA was making tan coloured boats for two seasons, they are now making blueish white ones (from about 181xxx onwards)
 

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