Shouldn't the "new rags"sails at the worlds be pretty?? Otherwise this would be a great photo.
Sure, sails could be better. But this should be waaaaay down on the list of priorities for the Laser class.
This may be of interest:
http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/news/?article=140114
will be good to see what these sails look like later this year - if they look rubbish then we know it's the cloth/crappy design. If they look good then we know the dodgy looking ones are just badly made.
I would think that if they were going to redesign the sail, it would be a good idea to redesign the whole rig (mast/boom) and get it over and done with, kill two birds with one stone
It would kill more than two birds; it would kill most Laser sailing, around here anyway.
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Okay, go for longer-lasting sails. Yes, let's reduce the excess cost. But for god's sake, no one is forcing anyone to sail Lasers so if you do not like the boat please go somewhere else.
By the way, I notice that most of the pro-change people come from areas where sailing isn't doing all that well. Have you considered that your failure to worry about current sailors and cost is part of the problem?
It would kill more than two birds; it would kill most Laser sailing, around here anyway.
Imagine the typical club racer, a person who is quite happy with what they have, having to fork out about what they may have paid for their boat, just to keep racing in the Laser class. Only a few would do it straight away. Lots of them are average middle class people who are not selfish enough to tell the family "stuff the holidays we were taking; forget about new bikes for the kids - I need the cash 'cause I wanna whole new rig so that I can finish 2 minutes faster".
The good guys, on the other hand, would lose most of the fleet they race against. And the guys they sell their old rigs to, so they can keep buying new ones.
And for what? The "joy" of finishing about 2 minutes faster. For god's sake, if people wanted to finish earlier they would buy Megabytes, or Hobies, or Bladeriders. BUT THEY DON'T!! They choose to sail the Laser.
Having a faster Laser is like having a bigger bonsai tree, it's just not what the class is about, or even very good at. And advocates for a "modern" rig have ignored the practicalities; what happens in the crowded rigging areas of many clubs, when rigs have to be rigged up with sails laid right out and laying down? What happens with fully battened rigs when boats are tied to a dock? (answer- they often fall over). What happens to these sails when they age (answer - they often have a much shorter back-of-the-fleet/cruising/training life and therefore are not available for entry level sailors).
My old club had rigs of this style 40 years ago and they dropped them partly for practical reasons. I've had cambered wide-luffed fully-battened sails for decades and they are great but they have significant problems for Laser-typee boats, which is why the big UK manufacturers who run the world's strongest dinghy market have largely abandoned them. These things are only new and exciting to people in backward areas.
I cannot see how you can get annoyed with people asking you to leave the class alone and go sail another boat if you want to change it. Many thousands of Laser sailors buy Lasers because they want LASERS. The basis of the class is that the boats are identical. Please stop trying to tell the vast majority of people in the class that they are wrong.
What you are doing is just like those people who come into a sailing club and then vote to put a pool in the rigging area and put in a new powerboat marina where the dinghies once sailed. It's like joining a baseball team and trying to get them to play cricket. I dunno, there seems to be something very, very wrong in joining a large group of people who are happy in their shared activity, and trying to make them change the basic rules that the group runs by.
It's even more wrong when there are already groups who do what you want them to do; in this case, the Moths, Finns, OKs, etc. If you do not like what Lasers do, then please stop whining and go find somewhere else to sail.
There seems to be some people who are convinced that those who support the status quo are conservative or do not know about faster gear. This is completely wrong. Guys I've recently fought out races with have sailed things like wing-masted dinghies, full carbon boats, 18 Foot Skiffs, cats, Cherubs, NS 14s. Just about all of these boats are much more sophisticated than just about anything sailed where most US sailors are. And yet these sailors choose to sail Lasers.
These people are not ignorant; they are vastly more familiar with ground-breaking boats; yet they choose to sail Lasers.
Advocates of Moth or windsurfer-type sails should note that windsurfing is now about 8% as popular as it was when in the days when windsurfer sails looked like Laser sails. Mothing is also a lot smaller than it was many years ago. Why follow the model of two areas of sailing that have crashed in popularity?
Okay, go for longer-lasting sails. Yes, let's reduce the excess cost. But for god's sake, no one is forcing anyone to sail Lasers so if you do not like the boat please go somewhere else.
By the way, I notice that most of the pro-change people come from areas where sailing isn't doing all that well. Have you considered that your failure to worry about current sailors and cost is part of the problem?
I really don't think my goal is unreasonable.