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| Rossiter Pintail Mortagne sur Gironde, near Bordeaux |
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| Laser 140101 Tynemouth |
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| Laser 28 - Excellent example of this great design Hamble le rice |
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Demise of the Laser 4000 |
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davidyacht 
Really should get out more 
Joined: 29 Mar 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1345 |
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 Topic: Demise of the Laser 4000Posted: 04 Jul 20 at 10:09am |
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It seems no coincidence that all involved in the RS and Ovington/Bethwaite organisations were top dinghy sailors and had skin in the game
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Happily living in the past
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Dougaldog
Far too distracted from work 
Joined: 05 Nov 10 Location: hamble Online Status: Offline Posts: 356 |
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Posted: 04 Jul 20 at 9:47am |
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I was there in the workshop when the original tooling and first prototype for the boat that became the 5000 was being done - the concept was for something that would have been very different to the final commercial product. Lots of reasons as to the 'why' but many of them stem from the commercial imperatives that were prevalent at the time. It might be a bit harsh to talk of the 'failure' of the 5000/4000 because for while they were the game to be in - if you want to be harsh you could quite easily say that the 5000 was doing fine until something better (the 49er) came along. Sadly, the Boss was sunk by a number of own goal - they seemed to suffer more quality control issues than a 1970s car from British Leyland or maybe a Lotus (we all know that one, Lots Of Trouble, Usually Serious)- at one club I used to visit a well know helm was on his third hull (in a season). A shame because when they held together they were a lot of fun....but like the 5000, nowhere near as good as the 49er which quickly became the boat to be in, sucking talent away from a lot of the established top performance boats.
It all seems so long ago now but they were exciting times............ D
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Dougal H
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Mark Aged 42
Groupie 
Joined: 24 Aug 11 Online Status: Offline Posts: 98 |
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Posted: 04 Jul 20 at 9:26am |
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PS I'm not Laser bashing, I am genuinely curious how one of the big 3 can fail to exploit an obvious section of the market.
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Mark Aged 42
Groupie
Joined: 24 Aug 11 Online Status: Offline Posts: 98 |
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Posted: 04 Jul 20 at 9:25am |
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And following on later, the Laser Vago seemed like a great idea.
Cheap, single trapeze, not too difficult to sail for the husband-and-wife team, and that too died on its @rse.
At least we we know why that happened. Or do we? |
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Do Different
Really should get out more
Joined: 26 Jan 12 Location: North Online Status: Offline Posts: 1312 |
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Posted: 04 Jul 20 at 5:39am |
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You're spot on there Sam. I had a Buzz at a sea club with a featherweight crew and it was the best fun, big kite for offwind (alright the deep foot called for a bit of knack to gybe cleanly) and modest white sails made it manageable in heavy weather.
I crewed a 4k once or twice and didn't like it at all, somehow felt harsh......., and wing wang seemed an unreliable faff on. As you say all very personal. Funnily I also crewed a 5k a couple of times, once light and once heavy. I don't know about it being a heavy boat but the rig weighed so much if you let it heel too much it would fall over regardless of wind  |
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Sam.Spoons
Really should get out more
Joined: 07 Mar 12 Location: Manchester UK Online Status: Offline Posts: 3401 |
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Posted: 03 Jul 20 at 9:11pm |
I think these forums prove that beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder (and, of course there's a fair bit of 'confirmation bias' at work, for example I think my Spice is a great boat and looks gorgeous, even in yellow  ). I would never describe a 49er as 'pretty' but a 505, Enterprise or Merlin (are modern Merlins the most beautiful boats ever?).....As for what is a great boat, I suspect there are very few real 'dogs' out there these days, if you thing is I14s then a Spice is going to be a bit of a disappointment, despite being more or less the same length, weight and with not that much less white sail area. I would probably find an I14 a challenge too far and for me it would be a bad boat. In terms of smiles per dollar the Spice runs the Blaze close as the best boat I've ever owned but they have nearly all have given plenty of smiles (Oppi, Heron, OK, Laser, Ent, Spice, Blaze and Supernova. Not that many over 56 years sailing... Of those the worst by far was the Laser with the 'nova a very close second).
Edited by Sam.Spoons - 03 Jul 20 at 9:17pm |
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Spice 346 "Flat Broke"
Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish" |
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Paramedic
Really should get out more
Joined: 27 Jan 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 929 |
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Posted: 03 Jul 20 at 8:32pm |
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Both the 4000 and 5000 were penned by Phil Morrison..........
Jon Turner was involved heavily in the Boss and shared credit for the design thought his is forgotten in many records |
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Oatsandbeans
Far too distracted from work
Joined: 19 Sep 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 382 |
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Posted: 03 Jul 20 at 5:52pm |
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I am with you on that one Jim - and let’s not forget how ugly they were. Bethwaite and Morrison designs look the part -sone of the other “designers “ boats are awful-and that’s just the bits we can see, do you think they did a better job of the bits we rarely look at (underwater) I somehow doubt it.
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JimC
Really should get out more
Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6662 |
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Posted: 03 Jul 20 at 5:20pm |
Well, pretty much all the classes that evolved from that Howlett design school are pushing up the daisies, whereas the 200 and 400, derived from Morrison's very low wetted area Merlins and 12s have survived, as have the Bethwaite school. But its unwise to draw too many conclusions because of the general collapse in popularity of high performance dinghy sailing. |
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Rupert
Really should get out more
Joined: 11 Aug 04 Location: Whitefriars sc Online Status: Offline Posts: 8956 |
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Posted: 03 Jul 20 at 2:18pm |
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Not such a blind alley, then, Jim? If you take the whole package and whether it does what a sailor wants, then design philosophy and the last nth of speed is pretty unimportant.
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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686
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