Latest legal Laser tweaks????

Why does this forum keep coming back to Laser/Torch bashing - its been done to death.

The Laser remains unique - you can buy a decent older hull, tidy it up, add the latest rigging bits, buy a new sail and go and compete almost every weekend around the country with like minded people.

Most clubs have good Laser fleets and, despite its rig etc etc etc, it competes well overall on handicap in both light and strong winds. It wont often win handicap races but is a great all rounder.

You can leave it for months and get straight back in and enjoy it with no real issues and minimal maintenance.

If you do badly you have to look at yourself - not the boat.

This rig is actually still very efficient - how many other rigs can give such good performance up and down wind over such a wide wind range ?

Its robust and you can still win events with old and pretty cheap kit.

If it was so bad nobody would sail them.

Not so long ago I sailed one for the first time in years (for fun) in Vassilliki and I cant think of anything that would have been better that day.

Horses for courses.

Most new singlehanders get touted on here as the boat to kill the laser, yet don't even surpass the solo for competitive numbers.

The laser bashers on here just can't seem to appreciate that we all choose boats for different reasons.

If there were regularly 20 people at my club sailing una-rigged skipper 14s I'd probably consider getting one. Thank f**k there isn't, so I'm more than happy with my £400 laser.

That's a ridiculous thing to say, Mike. Do you always deride those who happen to have different preferences from you?

No not always .... and in fact very rarely indeed if you follow this forum.

Chris ... it is a forum not a public enquiry anyway ... you are taking it a bit on the serious side.  I don't think there is any will in the Laser class to do anything except get old and die (er racing wise I mean  )

It is like Antie Flo's sideboard ... a bit of furnature that was not really that great when it was purchased and 'she' has now got an emotional attachment for it  ... and it is unlikely to disappear suddenly from the front room  ....

I'm 'knocking' the status quo on this rare occasion becaue I've actually owned a number of them, trained others in them etc and can give a bit of a qualified view... (and I have no authority to commnent on the sailing qualities of anything I have not sailed .. but the Laser class is up there in my own relatively short list of boats was'lived with' for more than a short while.  

Laser School report: " Could do better and more than a bit complacent on many occasions ... usaully thinks itself beyond improvement and does not accept 'encouragement' to keep up with lifes lessons.  It needs to up its game these days ... otherwise a waste really after a good start"   

Mike L.

Originally posted by blaze720 Laser School report: " Could do better and more than a bit complacent on many occasions ... usaully thinks itself beyond improvement and does not accept 'encouragement' to keep up with lifes lessons.  It needs to up its game these days ... otherwise a waste really after a good start"    Mike L.

No doubt I'd have been expelled from your school a long time ago. But 3,000 boats sold last year (again) speaks for itself really, with turnover from those boat sales alone of £15 million. Would you seriously consider changing a winning formula if the Blaze approached those sort of numbers...?

.......with turnover from those boat sales alone of £15 million....

It is tempting to go "blah blah blah" of course - but pray tell us 'knockers' (many of us who sailed the Laser in its prime when every club had its 'best' sailing them so perhaps we do know a bit about what we talk ...) what the sales figures in real money terms were back then ?   What happened to reduce sales by so much and so relatively quickly ?  Hero to .. just 15m in a couple of decades or so.

Sure don't change the Laser  .. at all or ever.   It will suit every other maker just fine and many will continue to pray that the current Laser ownership do not react - I would say 75% of every customer I have today did own one sometime.    Ask the same question in say 10 years .. I'm guessing but I bet that figure will be a fair bit lower. 

The point being made .. It just does not have to be like that.   'We' sailed them long enough to want to see them thrive even today for the good of the sport .. perhaps against our own selfish best interests in some cases.  But then 15m in just about any other consumer product sector many of us work in or worked in once upon a time really is not that much...   

We are not knocking the Laser .. only the policy that says planned evolution is not relevent and that any change is always a threat. 

Mike L.