Any reason to buy legal battens?

ang

Member
My 3 battens were stolen/lost, is there any reason to pay the extra 25$ to get a laser sticker on them? I race my boat, and will ne going to orange bowl, but I dont care about stuff like that being class approved unless there's a performance or strength reason. So laser brand or other?
 
i dont conciser that cheating or affecting value. How is it cheating if there is no performance advantages? its not like its a sail or blades. my deck plate for the cunningham and outhaul broke last year, i got a intensity, same weight, material, and sizes. the only advantage is it was like 30$ less. i can guarantee when i sell my boat no one will look at the plate and say its not class approved take 200$ off....
so is there a actual difference with laser battens where there is a performance difference?
 
Why buy an illegal set when they will be rejected at association events and you'll be forced to purchase a legal set. The class rules do not differentiate between performance enhancing and non enhancing cheating, it's still cheating.
 
i dont conciser that cheating or affecting value....
It will affect value in that the value of a 2nd hand Laser is what somebody is prepared to pay. Selling a fully "class legal" Laser has wider utility that one that is not "class legal". Look at it this way, two identical boats identical in all respects except one is class legal and the other isn't if the same price which would you buy. Answer, the class legal one. which means the class legal one has greater appeal which means it has higher value (in that the seller could ask a higher price).

Or another way of looking at it is that the buyer, if they wanted to enter any open/class event would have to go out an buy new battens (cost and grief).
 
I bought this boat used, im pretty sure the battens I had were not approved. There wasnt any names on the batten but I think the caps said aqua batten. What regattas do they check for stuff like that? The most I had checked, was my sail at laser midwinters.
And for selling it, whos going to buy a 2008 laser that has been sailed twice a week every week since 2012 and take it to a regatta were battens matter. I dont see it competitive at a regatta were battens and a block plate will matter at all.
 
All of my battens (just checked) of at least four different vintages say "Laser".

What regattas do they check for stuff like that?
Probably not many but that's irrelevant. Cheating is still cheating even if you get away with it.

whos going to buy a 2008 laser that has been sailed twice a week every week since 2012 and take it to a regatta were battens matter. I dont see it competitive at a regatta were battens and a block plate will matter at all.
Come on, a 190xxx boat "not competitive"? Seriously?

You're still completely missing the point. You think there are regattas where class rules don't apply. You're wrong.
 
Bought and sold a bunch of boats over the years, exchanging at least one set of battens each time. Grabbed one set, old kind that are white with grey caps. On all three, they read "Aquabatten" on the caps. Who knows, maybe I've been sailing with illegal battens all these years.
 
Who knows, maybe I've been sailing with illegal battens all these years.
Not necessarily. It may be just sloppiness from the supplier's part to have used their otherwise identical generic parts instead of "Laser" marked ones, or they may have even run out of the latter ones. Or it may be different builders using different sources which provide slightly different-looking but still legal parts.
 
All of my battens (just checked) of at least four different vintages say "Laser".

Probably not many but that's irrelevant. Cheating is still cheating even if you get away with it.

Come on, a 190xxx boat "not competitive"? Seriously?

You're still completely missing the point. You think there are regattas where class rules don't apply. You're wrong.

thats not what i ment, i know its still competitive. i ment its probably not competitive at the higher regattas where every detail matters. and in my area the laser performance lasers are outnumbering the vanguard lasers at regattas.
i own all laser spars, sails, blades, and im pretty sure , my rigging is all legal. whats the difference between a 10$ fiberglass stick with a 30$ laser sticker and a 10$ fiberglass stick made by the same company they just didnt put the sticker on it.

Bought and sold a bunch of boats over the years, exchanging at least one set of battens each time. Grabbed one set, old kind that are white with grey caps. On all three, they read "Aquabatten" on the caps. Who knows, maybe I've been sailing with illegal battens all these years.

yeah mine were white with grey caps, only one had a cuved tip on the end.
Not necessarily. It may be just sloppiness from the supplier's part to have used their otherwise identical generic parts instead of "Laser" marked ones, or they may have even run out of the latter ones. Or it may be different builders using different sources which provide slightly different-looking but still legal parts.
but thats exactly what i would have bought. the identical generic one.

either way im not going to be able to get battens before orange bowl, and im not buying them there for 50$. so im using what ever i can find.
i sail the youth regattas. the only cheating i see and the majority of the youth fleet near me at regattas care about happens on the water, and lp cheating me out of money on every overpriced junk i buy from them
 
2 clubs I used to sail at "tolerated" non class legal parts for club racing. But for their Open Meetings (where a lot of club members used to attend - their only ever regatta) they were 100% insisting everything class legal.
 
Aqua batten ends were the builder supplied batten ends over a decade until they were replaced with the ones marked "Laser". Subsequently one end was changed to the more recent concave shaped end. Battens were always measured at all the regattas I formally measured boat and were always measured at events like national and Asia-pacific regattas.
 
Thanks Alan.
I was going to ask whether 'Aquabattens' were legal.

My (second-hand) boat came with two Aquabattens and one Laser branded batten.
All have grey tips, the Laser batten has one concave end.

I'm entering my first (New Zealand) Nationals early next year so am making sure my boat is up to spec.
 

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