Blaze vs Laser Comparison

Originally posted by seamonkey You'd love a Merlin GRP ... some of them are carrying 25kgs of lead in the hulls

Removing the lead might also kick start the design process, which might be good for a restricted development class.

Hi Greame

I agree with you about lead .... but if we just make them as light as is technically possible then why not allow larger sails as well ?  If you want good class racing you have to have some agreed rules regarding the craft - and weight is one of them in every dinghy class.   I don't have to worry about this with Icon as we are defining the class ourselves - 87kg all up sailing weight which makes it lighter than a 400 by about 45+kg.... yes I know we can make them lighter as well if we wanted but it is proving very fast and durable.     

We have been very careful in the Blaze class to ensure that older boats can remain competitive .... and if you have an old polyester one that has absorbed a few KG of liquid over the years you can get them to lose much of it ... find a friendly farmer with a grain dryer or store in a hot/dry boiler house over a long winter after washing out very carefully with FRESH water.   One of the advantages of using materials apart from Polyester is they tend not to absorb water over time.  So if you have an older Blaze (or anything else)  that has turned into a bit of a porker over the years do the follwing 1)  Put in the extra hatches standard for modern ones, 2) wash out with fresh water 3) Dry it thoroughly over several months if you can.

If you have an older one that is saturated with salt water it will never dry out particularly if it lacks good ventilation..... (or why not save yourself a bit of hassle and buy an epoxy one  from me !)  Sure there will be some variation amongst older boats, some are now 15 years old and there was probably variation when they were built.  We surveyed all entrants at a Nationals a few years back and all Mk3 boats were on minimum weight and there was a good percentage of Mk1 and Mk2 (polyester) within 2-3 kg of minimum .... There was NO apparent advantage weight wise between Mk1/2 boats btw.  We have migrated the class to epoxy as all can then be sure their hulls will be at minimum but you can still be very competitive in older ones if you sort it.  It is a very good policy and means that we get very good turnouts relative to the size of the class cos the playing field is much more level than for some alternatives.  Are new Blazes faster then ?  Yes - I think so just as new boats in many other classees tend to be .... Recent Blazes however do not totally 'destroy' older boats on the race course to the point where the Mk1/2 owner sheds too many tears - and they can win at the highest level still. 

I know early polyester Phants were rather heavy 'in the day' and newer ones now are very much lighter but I think as much of their performance hike of recent years was due to rig refinement particularly through the adoption of carbon masts.  The Blaze CA is debating a similar possibility and we have developed a very good carbon stick option (courtacy of the Icon project)  if they ever want to switch.  But as I've said already it is not essential for good Blaze class racing to continue to grow and prosper. 

btw ....  if we removed our wings and correctors we'd be lighter than a Phantom.  But then that would be missing the point but it might be interesting to try this out on lighter days if coupled to a borrowed carbon stick...

Anyway a few thoughts on Phantoms and Blazes .... and many of us do enjoy our rivalry with them around the clubs in both light winds and in respectable breeze .......  and I thought this thread was something to do with Lasers !

Mike L.

Greame ... Just another thought .... I can't be the only one curious to know what exactly is the weighed or predicted hull and sailing weight for the V-2 ?




Edited by blaze720 - 11 Nov 11 at 10:19pm

Originally posted by G.R.F. Originally posted by blaze720   We have been very careful in the Blaze class to ensure that older boats can remain competitive ....  Why? who the hell does that benefit?  well it benifited me & also you when you brought yours Cheapskates wanting to give the boat a try, ok fair enough but hey why should they come into a class on the cheap and compete fairly with those who are prepared to invest the price of a new boat, it's not fair, screw the old boats that attitude holds the class back, If the class didn`t have that attitude then I wouldn`t have brought another & you wouldn`t have wanted one it's a typical GP14 tightwad mentality so 'fifties' and out of kilter with everything these days. The disposal age of short term thinking? that the age of today! Don't take this personally but you're doing it because its the way of things, the same as those fools in the Contender class and you're a fool for pursuing an idiotic model. As for the sail if you think it should be bigger make it bigger, Done That, It would be the HALO rig then ! it didn't stop you changing the original sail, that's a red herring, weight is more than just sailing the thing, it's lifting it on and off the bloody trailer why should I put my back out just doing that, I've a mind to sue you now i know you're doing it deliberately to disadvantage me.

I thought of another counter argument this morning. So according to that philosophy, i.e. nobody should benefit by new lighter boat, that means then that new sail buyers, what should hey do, scrub their new sail in a washing machine to make it old and shagged out like everyone else? Or what would happen if someone built sails in some super much lighter material like cuban fibre and the rig weight got halved?