I'm (the old fart) saying that in breeze you pull the kicker until the boom goes out not up when you dump, trouble is to achieve this on the boat we currently own the kicker is going max travel and the boom is looking horribly bent.

The boom is sleeved and the kicker key is difficult to hook in when rigging.

 

How much is too much?

That's right, as soon as you are sat on the side (perching I guess) then 'block to block' is what you need. When you start sitting in some people can make the boat go very well by having the boom and traveller block about 4-5 inches apart.

It is making the sail work with the mast rather than the other way round. The Laser is a huge compromise rig as you are always having to tweak the controls to try and get the shape right.

That is the general rule of thumb for Laser kicker upwind.

For the slightly larger Laser sailor having the rear blocks a few inches apart can work well though (certainly always did for me).

As the wind builds and you find yourself getting over powered then wind on more kicker and cunningham. when you get to the point where you cannot deal with the power then ease the kick back to block to block and get more cunningham on. I used to brace my foot against the front of the cockpit and really pull it.

I did find that if you have the 'cascade' style cunningham you would run out of travel before you got enough on though.

My max tends to be so that the boom block is just scraping the deck, but like I said, it depends what you're trying to do.

Yanking on kicker flattens the middle of the sail nicely by bending the mast but drags the COE back quite a lot. also makes tacking trickier as it's harder to get under the boom and you have to dump armfuls of sheet to get the boat to bear away out of the tack.

Downhaul pulls the COE forwards, and flattens the whole sail but also really opens the leech, especially at the top of the sail.

Choose your poison depending on the conditions and whether you're trying to foot or go high, and on whether you prefer buying masts or sails (kicker = new mast, downhaul = new sail).

Also bear in mind that the standard rig is significantly different to the radial.  You can't apply standard rig tuning rules to the radial and go fast.

 

Is there tension on the mainsheet when the boom block is touching the deck?

I don't think our kicker will do that even with the kicker blocks blocked.

Ben are you talking radial or full?

 

How much should the bottom section bend? Ours is a Rooster, maybe it's too stiff?

I never managed to get either my radial or full rig down that far.

Managed it with the 8.1 but the mast is that bit longer so there is more flex in it.

Didn't stand a chance getting under the boom though!

I'm talking radial.  At max kicker the mainsheet blocks will have zero tension pulling down on the boom, only sideways in and out.  The boom actually goes out a bit when you pull this much kicker on because the two blocks are no longer anywhere near vertical, so the boom can't come in as far as when the boom is higher (if you get what I mean).

I should add a disclaimer here:  if you pull this much kicker on, you WILL bend your bottom section permanently, and it will no longer be as fast in max power conditions.  It will also no longer pass measurement.  So it's not recommended in most circumstances (but the question was what the max is).  Also, if you're not fast already, there will be bigger gains in speed to be made through technique, and that don't involve ruining your mast.

If you want to see what this looks like, Marit was using roughly this amount of kicker in the windier bits of the olympic medal race. I can't find any stills from the onboard footage unfortunately. Closest I can find is this shot of Annalise:

http://www.sail-world.com/photos_2012_3/Alt_Sailing2012m_M59181.jpg

Marit was using another small yank on it than that (not surprising that she needed to depower more, given how much lighter she is)

P.S your kicker will be able to do this, if the blocks are locking out it just needs a bit of adjustment.  The double block should be near the top block at max off.  That will give you enough travel to seriously ruin your rig.  

Edit: I should add - most people sail with a purchase dropped from the kicker.  I don't know if it's possible to pull that much kicker on if you're using all the available purchases.