121062
New Member
Ahoy,
First time poster. Back when I had hair I used to race a Laser competitively. I went to the 1987 Worlds - Go Stu Wallace!
So I am thinking of getting back in for a bit of flat leg hiking but I did a bit of Master's sailing and the lack of reaching made me wonder. What is the point of sailing a Laser if you can't fang along on a few reaches? It seems that the old days of two triangles and a hot dog are gone. So is it fun to take a Laser upwind only to have to square run all the time? I used to love keeping the boom just tripping along the crests to leeward on a hot broad reach. We did a few reaches in the masters regatta but the long and fun reaches were replaced by a quick buzz to a second set of windward leewards.
I get that assymetric skiffs are fun on windward leewards but watching the Olympics has me yawning a fair bit. I pity the poor young 470 sailors who never get to blast along on a full power 3/4, or the Finn sailors doing the same, pump, pump, pump and never hang on!. And watching the Laser sailors plug up and down seems like lots of hard work for little reward. I was always fast on the square and this was a good part of my game, but do the masters just make their own courses and let the young ones sail boring windward leewards? Itcould be a deal breaker for me getting back. I loved training uphill and getting some full throttle 3/4s downwind made it a heap of fun. Are the courses still fun to sail? Does anyone still do reaches of any considerable length?
cheers
Phil
First time poster. Back when I had hair I used to race a Laser competitively. I went to the 1987 Worlds - Go Stu Wallace!
So I am thinking of getting back in for a bit of flat leg hiking but I did a bit of Master's sailing and the lack of reaching made me wonder. What is the point of sailing a Laser if you can't fang along on a few reaches? It seems that the old days of two triangles and a hot dog are gone. So is it fun to take a Laser upwind only to have to square run all the time? I used to love keeping the boom just tripping along the crests to leeward on a hot broad reach. We did a few reaches in the masters regatta but the long and fun reaches were replaced by a quick buzz to a second set of windward leewards.
I get that assymetric skiffs are fun on windward leewards but watching the Olympics has me yawning a fair bit. I pity the poor young 470 sailors who never get to blast along on a full power 3/4, or the Finn sailors doing the same, pump, pump, pump and never hang on!. And watching the Laser sailors plug up and down seems like lots of hard work for little reward. I was always fast on the square and this was a good part of my game, but do the masters just make their own courses and let the young ones sail boring windward leewards? Itcould be a deal breaker for me getting back. I loved training uphill and getting some full throttle 3/4s downwind made it a heap of fun. Are the courses still fun to sail? Does anyone still do reaches of any considerable length?
cheers
Phil