Radial rake measurement

Isn't at least 3/4 of the point of having a Laser to not worry about that sort of nonsense?

I'm sure that someone on the Laser forums will be able to give you an informative answer

The rake issue is not unusual in the Laser

Looking at the way the boat is sailed, I assume the more upright the mast is, the more kicker you can Wang on before the boom hits the deck?

The issue was not the pot. They are all the same. The issue was the deck bond. If you look at any boat that has the deck bonded in this way there will be a varying thickness all round the boat. The pot angle was set by the mold, but if there was a slight excess of bonding agent at the bow compared to the stern then there was a significant affect on the overall mast rake. This also means the measurement for rake needs to be taken to the bottom of the hull as the measurement to the deck should be fairly reproducible. I suspect no one noticed until it became an Olympic class.
Now they are aware what the issue is, it can be looked at in the process. I suspect it took a lot of working out what the issue was.

Back in the day..... 1980's I went to pick up a new Laser from Banbury.
There that day were a couple of hot shot, top of the fleet guys, they spent hours weighing hulls and checking the rake by putting their own chosen bottom section in the pot of what seemed like dozens of hulls, they very carefully chose the ones they wanted, can't remember how they checked the rake, but they did say there was big variation. I remember my boat was a 128*** number, which kind of dates the time.

I of course just took the hull they gave me....