Laser-tastrophe

Greetings all,

My grandfather bought a Laser I believe in the late '60s which was passed down to me. It's mostly been sitting around for a while but I took it out for what started out as a great sail a few weeks ago, before a strong gust put enough force on the mast to simply crush the fiberglass hull supporting it. See photo.

Is there any hope of repair, or does the damage signify that this fine boat has come to its end?

Much obliged.

david m.

Looks like the lower mast step let go and caused the falling mast to take the deck with it.
Yes it can be repaired but depending on how well you can do fiberglass repairs or have to take it to a shop will weigh on how much it's going to cost you.
Having to repair the deck as well as the lower step is not an easy job if your not good at fiberglass repairs. Taking it to a shop could easily run you well over 300 bucks.

+1 to Wavedancer- there are a LOT of threads on this forum about this problem, cuz a LOT of older boats have suffered similar failures. Yes it can be repaired- I repaired mine from early '70's. If you're handy around tools and repairs in general you can probably get it done. Experience with fiberglass is a big help. Paying somebody else to do it gets into a bunch of money, which starts raising questions about whether it's worth it, on an older boat. If you DO give up on this boat, and buy another older Laser, I'd heartily recommend cutting an inspection hole behind+beside the mast, and at least inspecting, and probably reinforcing, that joint where the bottom of the mast tube attaches to the inside/bottom of the hull. Reinforcing it is pretty easy, especially compared to fixing it after it breaks + falls.

Good luck ---

I have a mid 80's and it had a few leaks. Repaired the mast step, rebeded all the fittings and fixed a couple of spots where the deck/hull joint was separating. Out sailing all weekend and just pulled the plug to no water.
If you have the time and a bit of knowledge in fiberglass repairs I'd say to go for it and try fixing it yourself. Having a shop do it will push it to the "Maybe I should just find another boat" end of the scale.

Okay, thanks so much for the help. Going to get an estimate from the local shop and go from there. I'm generally handy and can figure things out, but don't have the fiberglass experience. Might be able to find a friend who does...

Again, thank you.

Good luck. And if that estimate from the shop comes back + it's too much to make sense - as long as you're generally handy, you'll likely do a fine job with it. Come on back to the forum- there's plenty of threads, pics, and descriptions, and we'll all weigh in with guidance/answers etc.