Boom swing

[Jim Cheatham]

I have just purchased 1984-88 Laser. I use to sail a O'Day daysailor. I've noticed with this laser that the boom does not freely swing as easily as the daysailor. Is this a characteristic of the Laser and or is there a way to improve this? I've heard things like teflon tape etc...

 

[LooserLu]

The Laser-gooseneck has from it´s original-design no freedom to swing to the side, the complete rig turns around, if you give mainsheet. It is classlegal to use ""a" disc" down in the maststep. It is one of the lot ambigious sentences in the actual Laserclassrule. You are not allowed to use two discs {one made of Teflon ("TM" of DuPont Inc.) and under that, another disc (diameter ~64-65 mm/thickness 1mm in stainless-steel-quality (f.e."AISI-Type-317") and epoxy-glued to the ground of the maststep)}.
DrLaser (http://www.drlaser.org/frm/plfMACf.html) refers about this at the text "How to prevent wear in the maststep". You can (Teflonspray-)lubricate the maststep and use also "mast wear strips" (search at http://www.apsltd.com for them).
Ciao
LooserLu