relaxed sailing?

[kriss]

can a laser be used for 'relaxed' sailing or is it too 'touchy' and a sunfish would be more suitable?

 

[bjmoose]

Certainly it can.

You may find a sunfish a little easier to keep upright in a blow.

 

[GeoffS]

I love cruising around the lake in my Laser.

 

[xflyer95]

I love cruising around the lake in my Laser.

...after seeing all the pics of your "hard water" sailing that you sent me...anything under 40 kts is relaxing to you!

 

[glexpress]

can a laser be used for 'relaxed' sailing or is it too 'touchy' and a sunfish would be more suitable?

I recently got back into Lasers after 13 years for fun relaxed sailing. I also have an Express 27, which can accommodate more and in many ways would be superior in that regard. But I can't have an Express ready to trailer in 10 minutes and head up to go camping or to the cottage, much less launch at any of those places

Anyway Lasers and Sunfishes are of course both dinghys, so they are "touchy" as you say by definition, they are also wet. So if the objective is to have a place for your cocktail and to stay bone dry a one person dinghy isn't going to hack it. I personally don't care if I get wet during recreational sailing and I can wait until I'm back to shore for a drink.

 

[arm]

Hola

I race my laser on thursday nights (club fleets) and every other sunday plus some masters....but I also enjoy the solace found sailing the laser just because....just last sunday I spent over 5 hours just playing about on the laser...yeah I practiced some upwind stuff and hiking positions but for the most part I reached back and forth and had fun. Yes, the laser can be very relaxing when you are sailing just for fun.

regards.

Antolin

 

[marvin-miller]

can a laser be used for 'relaxed' sailing or is it too 'touchy' and a sunfish would be more suitable?

I spent many summers just cooking in the sun and jumping in when I got too hot. It was not uncommon back then to spend 4 or 5 hours cooking and swimming and then, at the end of the day when the sun would start to recede, the wind would pick up and I'd get at least a hour of good sailing. On days like that you can also tow a 6 pack of pop or whatever behind the boat and if you have an inspection port then you can bring other things along too.

So for sure, you can easily spend entire summers floating around and it's actually quite nice.

The nice thing about Laser's is that it's really up to you. Because they are so portable you can go to lakes that are typically calm or you can hunt down places where it cooks at 30+ knots every afternoon. Or, anything in between.

I enjoyed floating around waiting for the wind and as I got more experienced (and a little older) I really enjoyed going out to remote areas where it cooks each and every day.

My last trip was in a consistent +40 knot wind - it was incredible and at the far end of the scale That was 10 years ago and I'm still recovering from that trip The neat thing is that even though it was so long ago it's still burned in brain. I can lie back in bed and literally re-live a big portion of it at will - now that's cool !

I live on Vancouver Island and now that I'm older I'd like to try something easier. A run with the wind from the Island all the way over to the mainland. I think it's about 20 klicks or so but there are days when I figure the wind will blow you right over there in one big long run....