Buying New Sail: Go Faster?

Total noob question this; I've bought a Laser and I love it. I want to go faster; would buying a (brand) new sail improve the performance of my boat? I am in the fortunate position of being able to afford brand new and was wondering what kind of effect this would have on the global performance of the boat, i.e. in terms of speed and maneouvreability. Naturally, I know the main thing in getting my boat to perform better is getting better at making it perform, but I don't race much and I just want to go as fast as I can. Thanks!

In terms of racing it would make a bit of a difference but I wouldn't imagine you would notice any extra speed when just sailing around unless you currently have one of the terribly old ones that you can practically see through. But if you have the money, go for it, what better to spend money on than a boat.

With a Laser sail the bigges issue is that the cloth stretches permanently in a very short period of time. This means the centre of effort tends to move back and you need to apply more cunningham/outhaul than you ordinarily would in order to get it to the right place. This has the knock on effect of depowering the sail (as this is what applying more cunningham does among other effects) and stretching the sail more. It is a vicious circle.

Also the new laser sails, are very expensive. Personally in less your going to be serious racing around the circuit, doing qualifiers or ladder events. I would not bother. I would go for something reasonably new second hand, which is probably 200 pounds cheaper off ukla,apollo duck, ebay or even dinghybits facebook page. On ukla recently theres been some very good laser kit from ex olympic sailors who were selling there sails/boats off when they return home after there olympic campaign. Personally from your description you sound like your just starting out, wait maybe a season or two till you buy an absolute new one, if you feel its holding you back.