Blaze vs Laser Comparison

Edited by rogue - 10 Nov 11 at 4:54pm

Whoa there! I am not, and never truly have been "in the industry." For a while some time ago I scratched out a living laminating and doing gel repairs but don't, and never have had a commercial axe to grind.
I love sailing and its variety as much as anyone else, appreciate good and progressive design, am in as good a position as anyone else here to pass comment. I don't see the need to be a sycophant on an internet forum of all places.
Mike - didn't mean to come over as obtuse. Long day. Blaze isn't my cup of tea - however hundreds of blaze sailors can't be wrong, good for them. I still reckon that if I cloned myself I'd be a little bit faster round the course in the laser in most situations. My point is that I am sure a modern epoxy blaze would be nicer to sail / own than an old bucket and chuck it polyester blaze. It still isn't 45kg though is it?! I understand that it would undermine existing sailor's investments to build it without the 15 or 20kg of uneccesary material like epoxy foam sandwich solos etc.
Anyway, the reasons that it isn't quicker probably make it more accessable and enjoyable for a lot of sailors. 
Phant isn't really my cup of tea either, but hundreds of fat lads can't be wrong. To say it is optimised towards ponds demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of boat design. Take the Phant national champ and Mike and sail round a course on the sea in 20kts and I know who my money would be on.
3 years on and I have yet to pitchpole the punk boat. Including at a bloody mary with something like 50% attrition. Or sailing around the Isle of Wight.
Dan


Edited by Daniel Holman - 10 Nov 11 at 5:21pm

Hi Dan

No real offence taken !  Gives me an opportunity to talk about the boat as ever.  We build the finished hulls to 50kg as a default and can and have actually done 45-47 if/whenever we want already.  Add wing system, centreboard etc etc and we get to mid-high 60'skg - then corrector weight them to the class minimum of 72kg.  We obviously weight them and when I tell customers a weight it is not an 'aspirational' ideal for marketing purposes ... and do encourage all to weight their current class boats  ... just so they can compare 'published' with 'actual' - can be very interesting btw.

IF we wanted a lower weight then the quickest way would be to do the wing system in carbon.  But the Blaze class is a production SMOD and class racing is relatively affordable as a result without a wing, spar and sail + foil cheque book war.   The earlier boats can therefore still be kept/made fully competitive with a good sail and a bit of TLC on a budget.  The proof is that they do regularly appear in the chocolates at the highest level.  

You could equally argue that we could go for a skinny carbon stick as well and it would be retro-fittable of course .... I've tried them on the Blaze and I'd love it personally if the CA ever wanted to go that way but it is not essential for good racing instantly today anymore than it would be for say the Fireball or 505 classes.    Technically 'better' and that can mean whatever you want but not essential either even if it was to come in time.  As builder we are not pushing hard for such changes for good commercial reasons .. but can respond if needed.

Greame  ....  what would we do without you !  Priceless as ever ....  you loved that old Blaze deep down did'nt you and cannot get it out of your mind even now.  It haunted you even if your fantasy version has it tripping around in drag with a big girls blouse up front ....  so you strayed from that first pure love, tried the 'blond' of your fantasy but found it was really not like the Blaze-in-drag dream in real life.  In fact 'she' pushed you around a bit and was all round a petulant imposter into the fantasy ...

So in increasing desperation you strayed then even further from the 'one for you' .... regardless of money, reputation, damn it you were going to fight it and be proved right in the end.  So onto the DIY (or at least pay for it) Chimera  ... and you were going to build your own and rather personal real world fantasy ....  Perhaps it really is going to be seen soon  .... yes Greame so onto the real 'Franken-Blaze' (only you know that is the real identity of the so called 'V-2').  

Now really must do something a bit more productive ...

Mike L.      

.... Take the Phant national champ and Mike and sail round a course on the sea in 20kts and I know who my money would be on ... .

You'd force a tired old Grand-Master like me, well past my sell-by date now, do that against the current Phantom National Champion  - Are you joking ?  Oh all right then but only around somewhere of decent proportions say round a breezy Sheppey one year ? 
  


Edited by blaze720 - 10 Nov 11 at 7:01pm

That seems like trying to out-rant GRF!

OK OK .... I know that's not possible really, what was I thinking - you can't beat a real master.  I'll go back to being serious then.

Mike L.

I sail a Blaze and rarely have any trouble beating the Lasers at my club on handicap and I don't have too much trouble beating Phantoms on the water. Oh, I'm not claiming to be a sailing god or anything.