Lasers & Radials at your club ...

Originally posted by Guest#260 20mph means that a full rig is not a sensible option for someone that small. Rick

Yeah but think how good they'll be in big winds when they jump back to the radial . 

Originally posted by Doug.H Surely as the big boys can change to radials in the big wind, the lighter guys can move up to big rigs in the lighter winds...?  Over a series if both the big guys and small guys chop and change, results should even out.

...assuming everyone can afford multiple rigs....

From memory im pretty sure at oxford lasers with all rigs share a startline in their own 'laser' fleet but results are split into radials and fullrigs on handicap. Im not sure where the 4.7 fits in but it seems to work well there.

Rig swapping is allowed but you then have to swap to the handicap (and therefore results sheet) for that rig so if you do it often stringing together a decent series in one fleet is impossible.

Originally posted by Blobby Originally posted by Guest#260 Question is what do you do with the few who chop & change? Rick Protest them under Rule 2 - they will soon get the message! A boat and her owner shall compete in compliance with recognized principles of sportsmanship and fair play.

Bit extreme for club racing ...

We are just trying to best accomodate the different flavours of Lasers that all race off the same start. ...

Seems to me that people need to opt to sail the Laser or the Radial for the series and the people who switch rigs will have a set of results in each series.

I can see our recorders wanting to time the Lasers and then calculate the results.

Rick

 

At Hunts we allow free swapping between the rigs. We feel that although some of the better guys may change down in big winds and go flying the less experienced can do the same and get and experience the big winds with having to worry so much about death rolls and the like.

If it is a handicap series again rig swapping is allowed but you will always get the fastes handciap that you sail (i.e if a full rig changes down to a radial they will still be scored as a big rig and vice versa).

I will point out we do not have any regular radial rigs sailors though so the perception of fairness does not really come in to it. We do have a lad in 4.7 who regularly wins when it is blowing, he is just making the change up to a radial.

Paul

In a Laser fleet race its all scratch. As an inland club we have few radials though: our lighter sailors may sail Radials at Championships, but they use the big rigs at home. In a handicap series though they get the handicap the same as everyone else. The switching between radial and full rig in a series has caused some controversy, but as the big series winner last year sailed an RS600 to generally poor results on the evenings his wife wasn't there to crew their 400 the Lasers aren't the only offenders!