From experiences at our club the Laser 2000 is an excellent handicap boat. So much so some of the fast fleet wanted it moved into the medium fleet!

Also the 2000 is much more established than the vision so will have a better re-sale value when you come to sell it. Also there is an open meeting circuit should you get interested.

Go for a boat that you will not lose money no I hard that there is a long wating list for the laser2000 and that second hand that have not been sailed are selling for more than the new ones they are a very frendy class and they have good rscing acoding to people I have talked to at my club

the vision looks lik it shood be a cruser it is so big and has less power than a snale the laser 2000 looks like it would be good fun in a blow stable but a lot of speed for this kind of boat

someone noticed!!! lol well we all have to start somewhere!!

It is my believe that your 2nd boat should always be a cat, but i will admit to laser sailing in the winter

cats are grate fun but when the wind is light all you can do is sit there you can not roll tack or anything

yes and they get in every ones way when they are doingit can they go no a seprat cours

the 2000s have some excellent class racing events around the country (typically 15-20 boats for Millennium Series events), very close racing at the front of the fleet, but newcomers and young sailors are very welcome they make a real affort to embrace all ... they also have many opens at clubs with growing fleets, as well as 'L2K Play' family cruising events, and several coaching events a year aimed at introducing people to class racing ... their Nationals is a 'family week' again this year

a good second hand 2000 will be a better buy than a new Vision, in terms of depreciation

visit http://www.laser2000.lasersailing.com - www.laser2000.lasersailing.com  for details (PY etc)

well 3 new 2000's just turned up at my club this weekend all with different owners makes a fleet of  10 or 11 thats got to be one of the biggest fleets! great starter boat me thinks !

RS has a much better reputation of building boats that last the test of time than Performance Sailcraft.  Look at the Laser 4000 compard with the 400 both classes are going through a dip but in 10 years time I would put my money on there being more 400's at a nationals than 4000.

I expect in the long term the same will be true of the vision and 2000 laser will stop investing in the 2000 when sales slow where as RS tend to commit to classes even when they struggle.

We tried both boats (and the Omega - urgh) at our club/centre and theres just no contest. The Vision was so much faster than the 2000 in all conditions we tried it. Also when we weighed the boats the 2000 was much heavier than it said in the brochure.. only 5 kg less than the bigger plastic Vision. RS say the handicap is 1078. I can believe this and compare this to 1092 for the 2000. Our club members can race, potter and learn.

In our opinion the 2000 has had its day.. the Vision does it all better and is cheaper to boot. RS residuals are renowned.. and has anybody else watched the 2000 prices dropping this year.

I'm not 2tonner bashing, we've had them and love them. I just think now RS has got stuck in theres only one thing thats gonna happen.

I sailed all of them, and the whoever says the Visio feels worse is nuts.. theres nothing in it, they feel the same.

We're waiting to swop our boats and get Visions now, but RS says theres a couple of months waiting list.

Maybe a K6 one day.. nows THATS a weapon!

Theres much more to plastic than the looks. The benefits far outweigh the visual stuff, speshly if its little heavier than a 2k

Visions coming soon - on order!

People said the same thing about the first GRP boats once upon a time.

The point about weights being more consistent is an interesting one. As an engineer I am always trying to remove processes which have big variations in them or require some skill to acheive because although you might not make anything outstandingly good you will also not make anything truly awful.

If you buy a bad/heavy boat you tell everyone but if you have a good one you tend to keep it to yourself

Hi,

Don´t be afraid of plastics (or better: polyethylene) It has been used for fish farm cages for over 30 years in Norway, and it stands storms, high and low temperature, and not at least heavy impact. Also, it is environment friendly. An excellent material!

 I have just started to introduce RS Feva to Norway, and I was surprised how nice it looks! OK, it will eventually loose its finish, but my 10 year old glassfibre boat does not look completely new either....

True. For a given strength, You must consider about 10% more wheigth. Glassfibre will probably still be used for performane boats the next few years, but for beginners/all round boats, polyethylene will probably take over.

Originally posted by carshalton fc yer plastic is good and cheap but it isnt fast!

But that's because it's early days building 'plastic' boats. Wait until there's more than a handful of racing classes on the water and do a comparison then, just don't blow them off straight away because in 10 years time we'll all think hand laying up fibreglass is really primitive!

Originally posted by Matt Jackson Originally posted by carshalton fc yer plastic is good and cheap but it isnt fast! But that's because it's early days building 'plastic' boats. Wait until there's more than a handful of racing classes on the water and do a comparison then, just don't blow them off straight away because in 10 years time we'll all think hand laying up fibreglass is really primitive!

Plastic boats need relatively speaking massive investment in the tooling and therefore needs mass production.  That being the case, plastic boats will generally be targeted at high volume markets which probably excludes the top end of the racing game.

Which brings you to the conclusion that plastic boats will always appear slow because the technology does not lend itself to making small numbers of very high performance boats...

Originally posted by Blobby Originally posted by Matt Jackson Originally posted by carshalton fc yer plastic is good and cheap but it isnt fast! But that's because it's early days building 'plastic' boats. Wait until there's more than a handful of racing classes on the water and do a comparison then, just don't blow them off straight away because in 10 years time we'll all think hand laying up fibreglass is really primitive! Plastic boats need relatively speaking massive investment in the tooling and therefore needs mass production.  That being the case, plastic boats will generally be targeted at high volume markets which probably excludes the top end of the racing game. Which brings you to the conclusion that plastic boats will always appear slow because the technology does not lend itself to making small numbers of very high performance boats...

Sorry, I disagree. The tooling for rotomoulding isn't that much more than for a decent hand layup mould - and it's certainly not an order of magnitude more like injection moulding.

Fibreglass seemed exotic and cheap (impressive how it pulled that one off eh?), but produced slow boats, once and look where that has lead - Carbon foam sandwich and the like. All I'm saying is that you guys are confidently making judgements on a technology which is in it's infancy.

I'm not making any judgment on current designs just trying to open a few minds.

but it is easy to name slow heavy glass fiber boats  It has taken years for glass ents, gp14's solos wayfarere's etc to be significantly faster than their wooden counterparts.

Was that the plastic version - or still the prototype though?

They did say it was much faster than they ever thought it would be...

Once crushed down, the average high performance boat would be no more than a few weeks worth of household waste, given that the average house produces around 15-20kg of unrecycled rubbish a week. If the enviropolice try to make us only sail "recyclable" boats I think it would be time to remind them that their precious wind farms are made of glassfibre!

If anything kills off production of fibre reinforced composites, it will be the Health and Safety at Work people. Though in reality, this would just mean all production takes place in China!

Ladies and Gents

We have read with interest here at RS Racing since this thread was introduced to us last week.

This question was originally posted by someone who was making a decision on spending five thousand pounds of their hard earned. Whilst most of the replies posted here are really useful, does this buyer not deserve advice based on sound knowledge and experience rather than inaccuracies?

Some input from inside RS:

The Vision has proved sigificantly quicker than the Laser 2000. This was how is was designed. The provisional handicap is 1078, but this is likely to drop as time goes on. Well sailed Visions have been staying alarmingly close to mediocre handled RS400s when racing - does this answer the acid test? However, you shouldn't get hooked on the speed thing.. these boats are not orientated for this. We know how to build fast, demanding boats and supply the top of the pyramid of sailors in the world. The Vision gives everybody else a whole heap of the performance, for a small slice of the demand and outlay. Its still an RS, so its handling is still RS-like and its performance is more than acceptable for most.

The engineering that goes into rotomoulding has leaped ahead in the last 5 years. It is far from in its infancy, and I invite anyone who thinks the tooling is cheap and low tech to come and see the set-up for the Feva and Vision. The mould is individually temperature controlled in compartments and the machine and computer that rotomoulds is constantly adaptive to the heating and cooling variables. Its impressive stuff and staggeringly expensive to tool up. The actual design of the boat itself has to overcome some pretty intense factors too - such as the torsional rigidity issues (no bulkhead stiffeners in a plastic boat) so its only recently that a boat holding proper rig tension (like a Vision or Omega) has been possible. The end product typically costs just 65-75% of its glassfibre alternative.

In terms of comparison, the Vision is much closer to the Laser 2000 than, say, an Omega, which is really into Wayfarer/Stratos territory. The Vision is about 6 inches longer (to give bigger cockpit) and, even though its Polyethylene, is just 4 kilos heavier in terms of sailing weight (hairy monster - your stats were spot on!). It has a slightly larger rig (especially gennaker) and its stability is similar. We purposefully designed in a little less stability to maintain an 'RS' feel, and also because we know that high topsides (for secure feeling in the cockpit) means that theres lots of reserve buoyancy to save you should the boat heel over.

There are some repair based concerns with Polyethylene which is slightly unfounded. Plastic repairs are possible and not difficult - its just a different technique. Scratches and scuffs can be removed (though dents are more difficult) but don't forget they are significantly more robust in the first place.

The Laser 2000 has been around for much longer so inevitably there will be some more established fleets. Given time, the Vision will have the same.

Class Associations need members to be formed. We already have the basis for a committee and rule structure set up, it just requires a critical mass of owners to get things going. No, Carshalton FC, this doesn't jeopardise the strength of the class at this time.

The demand for Visions is currently unprecedented and this affects residual values as used boats are more immediately available. However, don't underestimate how much people enjoy buying brand new toys. Time and time again I hear people making the comparison between used fibreglass and new plastic and the conclusion is that where you can have a product brand new that performs, handles and reacts in an identical if not better way for the same price, why wouldn't you? Of course the Laser 2000 is fabulous and has recently re-established itself as more of a racer (it never used to be marketted this way), so these bigger fleets will always create good demand for boats. Our experience would suggest that the reason for this previous domination (and therefore strong residuals) was based on the fast that there was little alternative. Now this has changed, inevitably so will the values of used boats.

Should anyone require more information on the Vision or indeed the thought process that has gone into any aspect of the design, then drop me a mail mailto:Riki@rssailing.com - Riki@rssailing.com

It was the plastic version, which they were trying to destroy, so i think it is in the final stages of testing

The ammount of material contained in a high performance dingy is relitivly small, however it does add up there is approx 10,800,000kg of materials gone into Laser 1 hulls since production started and that does not include build waste or fittings, rig etc which would probably add an extra 40%.

If it had been possable to construct a boat with the same sailing charectoristics out of an eisily recyclable material rather than FRP which is difficult to re-use then that would be an improvement.

I am not saying that we should use inferior equipment but if we can use equivilent equipment that is more enviromentaly friendly then that is a good thing.

Strange that the RS people are selling the vision against the Laser 2000 rather than the RS200.  I always thought the RS200 was the RS version of the L2k - only nicer; lighter, twitchier and that bit faster too (beer gut permitting).

The L2k is indeed very popular and it's good to race.  But it's a great big heavy tub too.  The freeboard is so high that hiking is uncomfortable and getting in after a capsize can need arms like Sinbad (big big pull over the high slippery side).  Being fairly stable, it takes a lot to heel it over, but due to the deck design, takes even more to pull it back.  RS200 any time. 

Better still, get a trapeze boat - especially if it's recyclable!!!!!!

that or you can get in at the back (or better still dry capsize). I  find the hiking position in the 200 uncompfortable aswell as the 2000.

Riki - just a question - what is the typical rig tension you would envisage on the Vision compared to the RS400 & RS800...

CHeers.

I'm not so sure it is that strange - the RS200 is the lighweights hiking assymetric race boat.  The Vision and 2000 are more general purpose cruising / family boats that can be raced. 

You said it yourself - it is lighter, faster twitchier...not ideal for learning or cruising

Blobby..

A Vision will safely hold around 400lbs of rig tension (on the forestay) probably far more, but its unlikely that 99% of users would ever pull that amount on - even with gloves on that would hurt the hardiest of hands using the standard 4:1 purchase. Typically it will be used with less than half of that. The boat is easily up to the job as the design cleverly triangulates the rig tension via the shoud points to the bottom of the mast step, and the mast foot is 'slung' off the floor. The foredeck arrangement then spreads the load between the mast and the forestay. This avoids the need for any unslightly and often unreliable metal beams between the mast and the shrouds

Of course an RS800 would typically sail with at least this, even in less windy conditions.. but then you'd expect this in a high performance epoxy skiff.

NickA...

We would always consider the RS200 to be in a very different bracket to the Laser 2000, and indeed its only recently that the Laser 2000 has been promoted with any significant racing aspiration. The RS200 is much smaller and its power delivery/handling is in a different league - far from comparible.

There's far more people that want to hike and not trapeze than vice versa, thats why the market for RS200s and Laser2000s will always be significantly larger than RS800s and Laser 4000s, even though arguably an RS800 is an easier boat than the RS200 to sail.

Cheers

I'd agree the RS200 is "in a different league" from the L2k.  Odd then that so many people are choosing L2ks for serious racing when they could clearly handle an RS200. 

Come to that it beats me why sit in hiking boats are more popular than in-the-water trap boats.  If you don't like getting wet, why sail?

PS: Still waiting for the RS500 (a single trap asymetric double hander with a PY <1000 and just about single handable in a breeze).... or is that called a 29er?  

.... but none of them are built by RS

.....though you're right, there really are too many classes already - even before all these new plastic fantastic boats take hold.  I should find a weighty friend, buy a 505 and shut up, evidently..

Now the first Vision is tried in the rough waters of western Norway. The user was happy: "We tried the boat in Force 6, and it took off like a rocket. We did not know the boat, so we often capsized. But we were surprised how easy it was to get it upright again. Unlike many other boats, it did not go completely upside down at once, but stayed on the side, which made it much easier to rise. We are very happy with the boat".

If RS did do a 500 there does seem to be some demand for a lighweights trapeze singlehander - say 12ft - 13ft long or so with a 9m2 carbon rig for those in the 45 - 65Kg weight range.  Could have a kite as well.

Definitely do not need another single wire trapeze boat in the near future...

I have had a sail in the Laser Vago a week ago and It is fantastic, it is easy to sail, accelerates well and gets on the plane easily. In a word it is fun, so I have confirmed my order and I take delivery in July, I can't wait. It's worlds apart from the Laser 2000, which I have always felt a bit lacking in the horsepower department and it is as much fun as a Laser 4000 with the kite up, but much more forgiving and easier to sail.

Laser have had so much demand for the Vago that they have tripled production and orders taken now will be delivered in September, so don't buy a 2000 or a Vision until you have had a go in the Vago!

Ooh exciting - part of the fun is not having a clue how to rig a new boat - it should only go together a few different ways (if you use everything) so it's just trial and error. I wouldn't do it with any time pressures though.

Raced against one last night and they do look like 'proper' boats (with freeboard and everything). I think they look pretty well put together from the distance I was looking from anyway. Thrashed it, by the way but as we've discussed before they aren't really marketed as racing machines and it was spot on Contendering conditions.

no, but it still has one