Demise of the Laser 4000

   Yes, I liked the look of the Alto.  I bracket it with the 59er and Icon as nice boats that never really got anywhere, unlike the Iso and L4000 that sold by the truckload but only for a short while.

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andy h Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Groupie Joined: 13 Mar 12 Online Status: Offline Posts: 69	Post Options Post Reply Quote andy h Report Post Quote Reply Topic: Demise of the Laser 4000 Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 9:17am
	Yes, I liked the look of the Alto. I bracket it with the 59er and Icon as nice boats that never really got anywhere, unlike the Iso and L4000 that sold by the truckload but only for a short while.
	Europe AUS53 & FF 3615 National 12 3344, Europe 397 and Mirror 53962 all gone with regret

Sam.Spoons Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 07 Mar 12 Location: Manchester UK Online Status: Offline Posts: 3401	Post Options Post Reply Quote Sam.Spoons Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 9:31am
	IME* apparent wind is the key, if you are not generating apparent wind then dead downwind is quickest, once planing and generating apparent you can head up for speed and then ride the apparent way down. I'm not sure it actually matters whether the kite is assy or sym, or even whether you have one at all. The Blaze, with no kite, is pretty good at generating enough apparent wind to sail on it, it just takes a bit more pressure than something with a huge kite. I suspect 'skiffy' planing hulls do it better than trad high rocker designs. The difference is very exaggerated on Raceboards, DDW in displacement mode you are making maybe 3 knots, if you can get planing in the same conditions it'll be 10-12 knots. The trade off is if you drop off the plane when sailing the angles you are likely down the proverbial..... * 30 years racing Raceboards and Div 1 successfully at regional and occasionally Nat level followed by 10 years rather less successfully sailing the Spice and (recently) Blaze.
	Spice 346 "Flat Broke" Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish"

Mozzy Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Far too distracted from work Joined: 21 Apr 20 Online Status: Offline Posts: 209	Post Options Post Reply Quote Mozzy Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 11:57am
	I don't particularly like the term 'generating apparent wind'. It suggests the extra energy is coming from movement of the boat. Like some sort of perpetual motion device. All boat experience apparent wind. And boats going faster aren't generating more energy. But by sailing across the wind, rather than directly with it, their sails pass through a greater volume of air. The greater volume of air that the sails interact with, the more energy you have at your disposal. They aren't generating energy, or generating wind, per see. Efficiency is key to this. This extra energy will be coming in the form of a narrow angles of attack apparent wind where a symmetric kite could never hope to work well without excessive drag (and in the form of foiling boats any type of soft sail struggles to work). At the end of the day you need low drag sails and a high leverage to make sailing angles work over a comparably sized traditional sails which sail deeper short courses. But, for me, whats remarkable is that the effect on how fun the racing is is the same for the 200 as it is for a skiff. The 200 'go deep' option is limited not by going higher being faster, but the kite getting hidden behind the main and being much slower. Which is nice, as you can experience the same 'game' in terms of downwind sailing without the difficulties that the extra speed creates.

Sam.Spoons Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 07 Mar 12 Location: Manchester UK Online Status: Offline Posts: 3401	Post Options Post Reply Quote Sam.Spoons Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 12:08pm
	Agreed, just using the wrong words, WRT low drag, that also applies to the hulls so 'skiffy' boats are better at it than trad boats. It goose-winging the kite permitted in the 200 (I think I've read that it was but was later banned but that may be another class)? Also curious about the Wayfarer/Wayfarer World (and, maybe Wanderer assy and sym kite versions) Edited by Sam.Spoons - 09 Jul 20 at 10:20am
	Spice 346 "Flat Broke" Blaze 671 "supersonic soap dish"

JimC Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6662	Post Options Post Reply Quote JimC Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 2:05pm
	I have never seen a polar diagram in which genuinely dead downwind was faster than sailing a few degrees off. Its always faster to sail angles if you get it right. However if you get it wrong the penalties may be substantial. But if you go back far enough the first Tornado cats were equipped with a whisker pole in order to take the runs dead downwind. An interesting exercise is to look at the race tracking for the Olympic classes, 470 especially of course, and see how they sail the runs...

Paramedic Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 27 Jan 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 929	Post Options Post Reply Quote Paramedic Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 4:09pm
	Guy Winder did a load of work on this with a fireball. It was in Y&Y magazine, it'd be interesting to see the article again. I think he concluded that a Fireball was not quite fast enough to make the angles pay, but techniques have changed a lot since then. Edited by Paramedic - 07 Jul 20 at 4:10pm

Paramedic Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 27 Jan 06 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 929	Post Options Post Reply Quote Paramedic Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 4:10pm
	oops!! double post Edited by Paramedic - 07 Jul 20 at 4:11pm

JimC Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6662	Post Options Post Reply Quote JimC Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 6:59pm
	This too is interesting... THE 23RD CHESAPEAKE SAILING YACHT SYMPOSIUM ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND, MARCH 2019 Science of the 470 Sailing Performance Yutaka Masuyama, Kanazawa Institute of Technology, Kanazawa, Japan Munehiko Ogihara, SANYODENKI AMERICA, Torrance CA, USA http://vm2330.sgvps.net/~syrftest/images/library/20190319140724.pdf

Guests Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Guest Group	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guests Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 8:20pm
	Good paper that. Interesting how conversations go full circle. Ten years ago almost to this very day I posted this diagram. The vertical axis is downwind sail area to total weight ratio. Bethwaite claims this should be over 0.53 to make tacking downwind be faster than running square. The horizontal axis is the ratio of sail carrying power to downwind sail area. I reckon this has to be at least 0.9 to make an asymmetric kite usable for RTC racing rather than just W/L. Ideally you want your boat to be in the top right quadrant.

JimC Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 17 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 6662	Post Options Post Reply Quote JimC Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 07 Jul 20 at 9:50pm
	Thing is though all the polars I've seen suggest that actually sailing at 90 degrees is pretty much always slow. The distinction to my mind is between sailing hot and "soaking" deep. Deep may be very deep on some boats. An interesting test to try if you think you are running square is to flip the boom across. If you are genuinely running dead down there will be no difference which gybe you are on, but I've found on any given course there'll be a good gybe and a bad one, which suggests I at least naturally sail a bit off a dead run.