Blaze Class for Sale

They're quite good if you can only afford a £500 sh*tter too ;-)

Its about the person not the equipment, after all as Lance Armstrong said, "its not about the bike" . . . Oh, err, perhaps we better not go down that route!

He could if everyone else was riding a 1970's bike.

Originally posted by iGRF Originally posted by Daniel Holman They're good if you want to go to the olympics! Really? Tell that to the poor b**tards with bent mast tops. It's testament to the corruption at the heart of sailing and it's governance, that the peak of human development and competition for most is contested in antiquity by us. The sooner the IOC spots it if it hasn't already and drops the anachronism from the games the better it'll become and the gravy train will be over.

Originally posted by davidyacht Doesn't matter if all boats are the same ... You are confusing recreational sailing with racing, a common mistake

That's not entirely true. The first duty of a racing boat is that people should want to get up out of bed on a Sunday morning and want to sail it. The premise that the boat doesn't matter implies that just as many people would get out of bed and go racing if the boat was a ghastly unresponsive back breaking tub as would if it were a delight to sail. I submit that is clearly not the case. After all if one just wants to compete there are cheaper and easier things to do than race sailboats.

And then the worst features of the Laser ergonomics are only apparent and effective to those driving the boat to the absolute limits of sinew and tendon.   You only have to watch a few club races to realise that the average club sailor doesn't do that. Perhaps the dreadful adult turnouts for UK Nationals in Lasers indicate that few do?