Has Laser dropped the 4000?

If a new builder was appointed for the 4000 class, the best thing I could see is reducing build costs to bring the retail price of the class down. You can get very good 4000s for about £2000 to £3,500, if a builder was to sell the boats at about £4,500 to £5,500, I reckon the new boat sails would sky rocket a bit. The possibilty of opening the sail maker but keeping to the strict measurements of the sails would also be a positive step in the right direction

£6k compared to £8k is still quite a difference. I'm making my point about not knocking any weight off due to the fact that the 4000 still has a relatively strong class and doesn't need to take that action to generate more interest in the class. Say you knock at least about 30kg off the weight of the 4000, add further more weights to the boat for class racing which would complicate issues further, what's to stop people taking all the weights out for club racing and having an unfair advantage. Not all the racing is done on the circuit and it would get down-heartening being stuck behind faster 4000s because they are lighter. I'm playing devil's advocate here because our club used to let us sail 5000s without weights and reckon that if the 5000 went the lighter route as is being suggested, they wouldn't have minded us knocking the correctors out if we had a lighter boat. If we still owned a 5000 and the class was pushing towards lighter boats being built by another builder, forgetting all other facts, the prospect of lighter boats being brought into the class would be enough to push us out into the 49er or I14. You can parallel the same sort of line of thought to Laser 4000 sailors jumping ship from the class to either the RS800 or the 29erXX. Future planning, do you buy a new 4000 which is slightly lighter or buy a faster boat for the same price (second-hand)?

Edited by 49erGBR735HSC

Knocking weight off would mess up the weight equalisation which is why the lighter 800 are/were only semi equalised.

from (little) experience to date, the front runners go for the better performance (lighter) Mk 2 boats, and get top draw racing, but further down the fleet the Mk 2 boats are burried in amongst the Mk 1s ... there's still good racing in the Mk 1s

i recon if you can bring the full potential out of a design (balancing performance against longevity) you're on to a long term winner ... settle for second best and you'll be bettered

Originally posted by yellowhammer from (little) experience to date, the front runners go for the better performance (lighter) Mk 2 boats, and get top draw racing, but further down the fleet the Mk 2 boats are burried in amongst the Mk 1s ... there's still good racing in the Mk 1s

Mk1 and Mk2? I thought it was a one design. What's the difference?