The new Laser b**tard

Which brings us neatly round to 'post 1' thread SC wouldn't have even considered Project X if he didn't think there was commercial value in it. The original suggestion was to make redundant laser hulls more attractive and put them back on the wet stuff again instead of going green upside down! In an environmentally conscious world that's a double plus in my book! 

There are loads of people, experienced sailors and racers, who sail Lasers because they are by far the best way into good class racing at club level. At my club loads of the best and most active sailors have Lasers, as well as other boats, because on Wed evenings we all go out together and have a ball racing against each other. I've certainly learnt a lot from it that I've transferred to sailing a Contender, and I'm quite sure I'm not alone in that.

It's easy to find things about the Laser that in an ideal world might be different, but then that's true of any class you want to name when it comes down to it. But what makes it work is that it's pretty easy to buy and sail, but there's a load of learning and improvement that can take you beyond that - and there are loads of opportunities to sail against people of all abilities to help you do so.

There aren't 200k+ Lasers scattered around the world because it's a crap boat that survives on clever marketing and the ISAF. There may be a market for the Rooster X, but I wouldn't bet on it being very big, or it being a knockout success - there's nothing very new or radical about Laser alternatives. Until you can teleport 2000 or so of a new class into club parks round the country you are going to find it very hard to seriously challenge the Laser - the class racing far, far outweighs the minor niggles with the boat.

so you'd have rule in Rugby with a max weight of 1500kg on the pitch at any one time?

you'd ban tall people from hovering in the 6 yard box so they can robot-dance in a football match?

international curling would only allow Scottish and Canadian women over the age of 40?

they'd be a minimum shoe size required to play on a full size tennis court?

you'd have jockeys carrying lead at Aintree?

OR

Would you have a sport where at the highest, most prestigious level the equipment is the same, or within the same rule set through the class system.  Where a young competitor from the provinces of Shanghai, born with sensory issues in her eyes and ears, can STILL rise the very top, both on the water and off it, because of the fundamental truth that the boat is the same the world over, so it comes down to the sailor and training commitment- no matter what their physical or socio-economic background?

+1  ... although I fear being underweight is easier to deal with than being over the ideal weight