Class Politics Stainless Steel Gudgeons?

Tom

New Member
I have an old boat (24995) and it has stainless steel gundgens and i was thinking to save me some money i could take these gudgens off and put them on my new boat (172256) are steel gundgens legal?
 
To the best of my knowledge, they are legal since they were original equipment but I am not a guru by any stretch of the imagination and would defer to others for a definitive answer.
 
I'm almost certain that stainless steel gudgeons are legal. A member of my club with a boat from the 90,000's has stainless gudgeons and he has entered state titles etc. where inspections have taken place and there didn't seem to be any problems. Speaking of rudders, my boat is from the 128,000's and the pins from the rudder head that insert into the rudder gudgeons have absolutely no over hang. This means that it is impossible to insert a pin to prevent the rudder from pulling out if that little metal tag fails. Does anybody know why this would be?
 
IMHO, it would be illegal to mount the stainless steel gudgeons of 24995 on your 172256. This is not an allowed alteration.

SG

PS. This is a CLASS RULES question, and maybe should have been addressed in the "Laser Class & Politics" bulletin board.
 
Y is it a "not an allowed alteration" its just like putting new gudgeons on?

PS who cares what forum section it is in OK
 
I think it would be considered like sailing a new hull with wooden tiller and/or wooden daggerboard. This has been deemed illegal numerous times in the past. (The reverse has occasionally been deemed legal.)

The FUNDAMENTAL RULE states:
"The Laser shall be raced (...) with only the (...) equipment, fittings (...) manufactured by a licensed builder in accordance with the Laser design specification (...) No addition or alteration may be made to the (...) equipment, type of equipment, placing of equipment, fittings, type of fittings, placing of fittings, (...) as supplied by the builder except when such an alteration or change is specifically authorised by Parts 2 or 3 of these Rules."

In the first sentence of the Fundamental Rule, the word "builder" is interpreted as the "original builder". The phrase "as SUPPLIED by the builder" in the second sentence also fortifies that interpretation.

In addition, Rule 26 in Part 3 ("Maintenance" rule) explicitly notes that:
"in the event of the failure of any fittings, or the replacement of fittings as authorised by these Rules, the fitting or the replacement shall be the same type as the original."

Part 3 does not allow for the replacement of the gudgeons, and even if it were necessary to replace them (due to some failure), this rule requires a hull owner to procure exactly the same kind of replacement part as on the hull that was supplied by the original builder (unless an optional part is explicitly allowed somewhere else in the Rules).

Of course, we can all argue about whether this is total nonsense and BS!

But the rule is clear. My humble opinion as noted in my previous post was that the replacement of the plastic gudgeons on the newer hulls with the old style SS Laser gudgeons would be illegal. A measurer who is forced to render an opinion on this matter can not decide otherwise. That would be in violation of ILCA's Constitution.

As for Tom's "who cares what forum section it is in" remark...

You should ask that to Bradley, Tom. It was The Laser Forum's (now the "Laser Sailboat Forum") original idea. Brad thought that such Class Rules and management and politics related posts should be separated from the main body of posts relating to "sailing" a Laser.

In fact, this forum originally started with almost a dozen specific bulletin boards.

In fact, the current policy is the primary information/database design difference between the "Laser Sailboat Forum" and the alternative medium -- the "NA Laser Mailing List". Many Laser sailors (for one reason or another) dislike reading paragraphs such as the one I am writing right now. Brad's thinking was to separate the "sailing" stuff from the "non-sailing" stuff. That's also the reason why we have separate "For Sale" and "Wanted" sections in this forum.

If we want to discuss this topical segmentation/compartmentalization , I'm sure Brad would not mind having us discuss it -- in a separate thread. But the question "Who cares what forum section a post is in?" is surely not part of this thread, in the first place. ;)

Cheers,

Shevy Gunter
(a severe critic of the original compartmentalized Laser Forum)

PS. Brad: Until this multiple boards issue is resolved, please immediately move this thread, along with the thread titled "new Laser sail", to the "Class Rules & Politics" bulletin board.
 
Tom said:
I have an old boat (24995) and it has stainless steel gundgens and i was thinking to save me some money i could take these gudgens off and put them on my new boat (172256) are steel gundgens legal?

Hi,
ok, this thread is a bit old but nevertheless I had the problem to change old stainless steel gudgeons into new. The old ones are sold out and only the new plastic ones are available in the Laserstore.
The question of legality to the classrule is just the same like Tom had. A long time I found no answer to my question.
Last month I had a contact to our national classofficer here in GER and he told me, that I´m allowed to change the old ones to new gugeons (made of plastic).
This answer from an official is maybe not uninteresting to other Laserites that had/have the same problem I had in that legality question.
Ciao
LooserLu
 
I would tend to think it goes along the same lines at the wooden boards, if the boat came with them than you can use them, but if not than no
 

Back
Top