Laser Replica Sails

I wish I had never started this thread. If I was serious about racing my boat, I would have played completely by the rules. However, through having a job that sees me away from home a lot and overcoming a health issue, a full price radial sail cannot be justified. I am always bottom half of the fleet. I just want a decent setting clean sail and not looking for a competitive advantage. If I was younger, a better sailor and let my overdeveloped sense of competitiveness get the better of me, I would have spent the extra cash on an Rs300

You didn't start it Cameron, it's been running for years, just goes quiet for a bit then flares up again.
Bit like hives.

Originally posted by blueboy Originally posted by Cirrus    When you bought that boat did you seriously not know the way things were ?  Use of replica sails at club level for Lasers isn't exactly new. When you bought a Laser, did you seriously not know the way things were ?

Originally posted by PeterG If I was serious about racing my boat, I would have played completely by the rules. However, through having a job that sees me away from home a lot and overcoming a health issue, a full price radial sail cannot be justified. If the replica gets you on the water then that's good news.

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

But Shakespeare's Richard II was unusual. Most of us want to believe we are the good guys all the time, and this rule or that rule shouldn't apply to us, and we can come out with detailed self justifications why this is so. But the end result of people ignoring rules that don't suit them is an anarchy, and historically in an anarchy everyone loses.

Sure, I am personally better off if I buy replica sails, but everyone who bought into the Laser class on the understanding it was a strict one design and they didn't have to worry about best kit or preferred supplier is worse off, and I didn't even give them a choice.

I guess the other thing that bugs me was the dishonesty of the original marketing. They were sold as being OK for club racing, only illegal in CA events, which was never true. If they'd been marketed as usable only in handicap racing I bet there'd have been a lot less takeup, and clubs would have felt a lot less pressure to permit them.