V3000

OK, Yellowhammer, maybe you're the man to trial the latest idea to avoid the shark bites.

Cut off a couple of inches of thick-walled high pressure rubber hose, about 10mm dia. or less (like the small ones you find under your car's bonnet - maybe you can use your engine's vacuum hose ) and stick it in the bottom rear corner of your d'board case. Ideally, cut out a section so that it locks in around the internal corner where the case widens a bit up from the bottom of the hull.

This will vastly reduce the impact pressure on the t.e.

Couple of minutes work for an engineer like you...

If your boat is up and planing and getting some serious speed and a shallow rock RUDELY posotions itself in your way then i imagine any dagger board will be putting a serious crack along the length of the boat. 
I put the centreboard down too early in an 800 (when launching) when sailing for a guy for the second time.......he ended up buying a new boat and needless to say if we hadnt managed to pull out a good result that wknd i dont think he would have let me crew for him again!

I think we may have a fix for the shark bites. Watch this space.

A couple of views from V3000 demonstrations at Queen Mary over the last few weeks, posted on our website:

"Just wanted to pop in and say I had the pleasure of trying out the new V3000 a few weekends ago with Graham from Queen Mary's. I have to say it's an extremely nice boat, & would get my vote over a Vago. The Vago is more comfortable to sit in, but my goodness the V3 is way nicer to sail. It's light & goes like the clappers when a gust hits. The Vago feels like a plastic tub compared." (RS700 sailor who learned single handed trapezing in a Laser 3000)

 

"When we hoisted (the kite) this Wednesday in 23-26 knots of wind, my Wednesday night crew, who also sails a standard 3000, and I both agreed that we never knew a 3000 could travel that fast. Phenenominal!" (Laser 3000 owner)

That first one's especially to wind Sumo up!!!

Interestingly, after the comments by Mike Ellis we canvassed the present L3k owners as to whether they wanted a different rudder blade. With one exception, they thought the present rudder was just fine and didn't want any changes.

As to the accusations of lee-helm, most asymmetrics will exhibit that if you push them high enough onto the wind, but the L3k is perfectly balanced if you're sailing it at the right apparent angle downwind, which with that boat is pretty deep. We expect the lighter V3k to perform best downwind if headed somewhat higher on the apparent wind, hence the shorter pole & kite foot that Nick A. describes; a useful by-product of that is that the boat kite-reaches better - something which most asymmetrics don't even aspire to.