"The whole is greater than the sum of the parts" which, come on people surely in the case of Laser the actual value of the parts is pretty low. None the less the whole is still attractive to many for various reasons.

It is understandable that we are often distracted from our core interest by shiny new toys. I am as guilty as any, often bemoaning the basic nature and my perceived high cost of Laser spars.

We are little different from other games. Saddlers have racks upon racks of different bits to make horses go "better" and Golf suppliers promote the latest head & shaft technology.

It is trait of human nature to want better and obvious that business will be happy to oblige our desires.

I guess both my boats are 40yr old designs, I was blinded by the light once by an RS300 for a season but am now very settled with my particular (or peculiar) vision of classic elegance.  

And for people relatively new to the sport, they are great fun to blast up and down, learn and develop skills without getting into dangerous situations.

The Laser is the Windsurfer Regatta of the dinghy world ... a simple, accessible route into the sport.

If we want to expand the sport, the huge stock of cheap second hand Lasers is probably the key, since performance per pound is probably the most important factor.

I do however concede that the present distribution chain has done its best to screw this opportunity up, and if I remember correctly I modified my views on OEM sails in recognition of the greater good that could be achieved by getting people out on more affordable kit.

One of our very rare new members just purchased a Laser for £100, he is having a blast.

I personally have never owned a Laser, but have sailed them on a regular basis.

I prefer my Sprint, more comfortable, easier to right, easier to get back on.

I should add, I am a member of CVRDA, so I am biased towards older designs.

Sailing doesn't all have to be "progressive". If it was far fewer people would take it up. Vast numbers of people new to sailing sail cheaply bought Lasers and loads of others find them easy and reasonably cheap to have fun sailing in. Many more are able to enjoy good class racing at a much greater range of clubs across the country than for any other class.  Many of those may also go on to sail other (more "progressive"?) boats. Surely those are things we should welcome and be pleased about? 

I thought the CII was OK when I tried it, but the World Youth rep who had to sail one thought it was pretty poor. The odd thing is that the hull is basically that of a baby Laser and the boat was of course created by the man behind the Laser, so the boats are so similar that abusing the Laser and praising the Byte to the skies can seem completely illogical.

The Byte fleet appears to have basically collapsed in North America and apart from Singapore and the UK it seems close to non-existent. The international website is all but dead. It got the benefit of being in the Youth Olympic Games and a bunch of parents and associations seem to have been lumbered with an orphan class. Sad.

Oh rather than being "so much choice" there is NO other choice than the Laser if you want to sail a truly world-wide singlehanded dinghy and you are under Finn/OK weight or want a SMOD. Okay, if people don't want to sail a major international class then that's fine, but stop insulting the choice of those who do!

In answer to your last paragraph, Tick, I meet lots of kids who love sailing Lasers and the only person I met who had to sail a Byte disliked it and went straight back to Lasers. And I'm in my mid 50s I sail a couple of times a week most of the year, and at national level in a variety of classes including cats, boards and dinghies.

Well it has numbers going for it but not quite the same racing scene!

I have a new carbon top section and yes it does solve the problem of bent top sections (but not bent bottom sections). However typical Laser Performance managed to balls the first few up! The first ones spit at the bottom and they used stainless rivet which rust when used with carbon. Also they dont seal the mandrel hole in the rivet so unless you do it yourself they fill up with water! As much as I love the Laser I do despise Laser Performance! There is no new radial sail however the Mark 2 full rig is a define improvement and is a very nice sail.

Ahhhh yes I get you.... The radial cut full rig does last a lot better than the old one probably easily over a season if you're just club racing

I doubt they would actually shut the door on Sunfish, it's clearly a money spinner if marketed properly. And they bought it......... Unless they bought it to kill it dead so the L@ser would be the biggest seller?

Implying that the Lightning (now 40 years old, only about 8 years newer than the Laser) or the Byte (a baby Laser hull with a modified 1960s Moth-style rig) are "forward looking" seems pretty damn silly in a world where the real leaps in performance have left all these classes well behind, and the leading edge in design is now owned by kitefoilers. Oh, and if you really think that a class that sells sometimes as few as one boat per year and another class that sells 20 per year across the entire globe are "forward looking" and going to be the future then you are the misguided one.

It looks like no one here has criticised Lightning sailors as being parochial souls who want to be big fish in a tiny puddle, so why do you call those who prefer other classes and bigger challenges "misguided"?  If we're over-sensitive then you are rude and arrogant, as indicated by the way you sit there on your self-erected throne and tell others they are "misguided" and "looking backwards" rather than respecting what others choose to do. Surely it's fairly simple - if you don't want to cop criticism then don't sit on your self-erected throne of "wisdom" and criticise others and their choices and classes.

I dug around the class site and they moved production to China and re-started it there. The class isn't doing well though, and according to AGM minutes one reason is that clubs are shifting to......Lasers.

Years ago this forum was an interesting and sometimes amusing exchange of sailing ideas. Contributors included young people and even women (God forbid). What is it now?

I will leave you to play with each other while I continue to support and promote a class that provides what a certain type of sailor is suited to rather than forcing them into something unsuitable.

Goodbye and "Thanks for all the fish".

It's the same gouging in other 5-ring classes. A 470 will cost about £25k all up (suddenly the 505 price looks a bargain!) but because the IOC wants it to be "cheap", it has to be built in polyester resin, FFS, so rig tension destroys the hull after a few months. Contrast the Fireball from the same niche (single trap, 16ft-ish) that you can get built in decent materials and remains competitive for years for around half that sum.

Further evidence sailing would be better off outside the Olympics