Some families then buy a Topaz so a parent can sail with a bigger child, or 2 bigger children can sail together.

Others go into Fevas. 

But we have no class for 2 adults. I got to wondering what would be a good choice.

Then I recalled the Laser 4000. They sailed well, had a neat system for crew wight compensation, and were well made. It seemed to be a good husband-and-wife boat.

And the class had Audi sponsorship for a while. 

What happened? 

Was the reputation tarnished by the 5 tonner?

Too expensive to make?

I'm curious.

And bored at work!

I sailed one on a Neilsons beach holiday in Greece 2 years ago as part of their holiday fleet. Brought back some memories ...

I was at Mumbles too  ;-)

And the Worlds at Lake Como, Italy

The heyday of my dinghy sailing was that time period in Laser 2's on the circuit.

Class had a mini-revival of enthusiasm in 2014 but it is still niche class I think. I had plans to try and do the circuit and other events, but a mate bought a National 12 and I then went down that route and now have two.

University of Southampton had a fleet of 4 or even more for 'casual sailing' based on Southampton Water which was great fun.

The Euros looked good last year in a great part of the UK too:

That comes as no surprise, in fact I was surprised and wondered why they had no Nats in 2019.

2nd adult boat in that category is not too shabby though (bear in mind that comes from a Spice owner..... )

If these moulds still exist and you could build the same boat in modern materials and with a carbon rig they'd be very different animals. I know the Boss was carbon and had a carbon rig but it was very early days and im sure the resin system was still polyester.

Incomprehensible to me; asymetric trapeze boats are so much fun.  Some blame the arrival of the lighter and faster RS800, and the turgid attitude of Performance Sailcraft didn't help; they never allowed classes to develop; just bunged them on the market and, when they stopped selling, withdrew them - so compared to the RS800 it is certainly dated.

Nevertheless, the 4000 is still alive; I've seen 6 to 10 boats at opens, Rooster now sell all the bits, hulls are cheap as chips. 

They are not perfect, the fully battened rig tends to power up suddenly (a pain on the beach) and the tall and heavy aluminium mast and rounded hull shape can make them heel alarmingly if you get a roll tack or a gybe wrong.  The hull is pretty heavy too, even without the correctors, and if you are a light pairing you have an already heavy boat full of lead correctors to pull up the slipway!  The construction is Performance Sailcraft standard - sprayed chopped strand fibre - which is heavy for its stiffness and tends to develop soft spots; it should really have been GRP matting over foam.
Had it been re-developed with an epoxy hull (as we did with the 3000) and a carbon mast, maybe a slightly softer main sail (the new Rooster one probably is) it would be / have been a great boat.   

Besides the construction issues, I think there has alas been a realisation among those in it for the race rather than the ride that a slower boat gives better boat on boat racing.

When you think that there were at one stage three classes, one each from Topper, Laser and RS, competing for the same group of sailors something had to give. RS had better products and were better at marketing them but even these have declined massively from where they were in the late 90's/early 00's

Anyone else remember the Audi L5000 circuit?

One of the great things about the 4000 is that it's fast enough to be fun, but easy enough to sail that you can focus on racing, and also jump in with a different helm/crew and get up to speed fairly quickly.

Yes it's heavy, but that means that crew weight makes less of a difference to total weight, and that the weight equalisation works over a huge range. The 800 is a great boat, but much more limited in terms of weight range. And you need to practice more to make it go fast!

Fair point.  But I like a combination of the two!  Downwind tactics in a fast asymmetric is more fun for me than chugging down wind in a slow boat and hanging off a trapeze up wind a lot more pleasant than hiking. 

And the L4000 is not a "difficult" boat any more (probably less so) than an RS400, let alone a Merlin Rocket, which retains their popularity.

... having said which as the frequent helm of a Javelin I end up soaking down wind and hiking up wind; the raw power and drama of a fast reach makes up for it though!

I think fast asymmetric are great, but only for the right sailors at the right venue. So, it's always going to be a niche. 

I think after the initial boom the niche has contracted back down to it's natural level. And the sport has generally contracted too. 

Initially the 4000 was early to market. Then afterwards it was low cost. But the 800 does almost everything better than the 4000. Better equalisation, better performance, similar in difficulty level. 

When I moved out of 29ers a few friend got 4000s because they were cheap. But then the 800s brought out the new deck, which created a value market. 

The 800 has done better at evolving it's offering. When these boats came out all their new sailors would be coming from traditional classes, so they had to be set up to have some familiarity to traditional classes. The 800 then went square top. And finally, they have allowed crew sheeting. These factors all make the 800 much more attractive to where quite a bit of new blood to the class is coming from (29er sailors) and puts it in a good position for where they might aspire to go (49er). 

Of course when the changes were made there was concern it would alienate the 800 from it's traditional base, ex-4000 sailors and adults who have sailed traditional boats all their life and fancy more of a blast. Both those groups typically favour deck sheeting and fortunately, both these groups can still use deck sheeting and still be competitive. 

The 800's now is about 25% ex 29er sailors.

Hmm, not convinced by this. Within a much narrower range, the 800 system works well, and it uses righting moment in the formula which it needs as it's twin-wire. But the 4000 system works just as well over a much, much bigger weight range.

Extending the range also means the total performance cost for the system is greater (more weight carried / more leverage sacrificed). 

So yeah, maybe not 'better'. But it certainly has some advantages. 

Very few are major changes to the class, but to give Julian his credit, he has really pressed to ensure niggles are ironed out. Each individual change was probably quite a bit of hassle for builders on their own, but cumulatively it's a much better package now than it was in 2000.

It also gives some tangible features as to why a new 29er is better (if not faster) than an old one. Which helps new boat sales.  

- Leaky aluminium foils == grp foils

- Leaky deck bars == Moulded deck kick bars

- Leaky sluice holes == moulded sluice holes

- Spinny halyard cutting top sections == inset halyard block
- Dangerous and topside only bowsprit / tack line == doughnut omni-directional bowsprit
- Fixed forestay giving 'pot luck' rake == half turnbuckle forestay to allow precise rake setting (15mm) without purchasing new forestay
- Shroud plates == turnbuckles
- elastic only additions == include thimbles and cord for take up systems / trap elastics
- crap daggerboard packing == any daggerboard packing

No, they weren't. But I think the hull shape and design concept was 10 years ahead of the construction method and rigs being sufficiently affordable and available to make them 1000 times better at a similar price point. The 5000 is heavier (By 1 kilo) than a Wayfarer!

Seriously - that is incredible, what on earth was Laser thinking when they approved the design???

Back to the ISO/L4k, whether they were great boats or not is a matter of opinion I guess but both were pretty successful for a while until people learned from their mistakes and more modern 'skiffs' emerged.

WRT weight, an I14 has a min hull weight of 72kg so the L4k and ISO at 80kg and 85kg cannot be considered massively overweight in comparison considering their 'standard' construction without exotics.

No thats way out, 5 tonner hull weighs 109kg, 58kg lighter than a Waybarge at 167kg. It's still a heavy old beast though when the Boss was 85kg and the 49er a remarkable, for the time, 62kg (how was that weighed? Did they do the usual wool pulling exercise and weigh without fittings, foils and racks?)

I believe the prototype Olympic 5000 as it was called was much lighter, but it got the Laser treatment. The rig was also so heavy and broke a lot in the early days.

Not according to Wikipedia it doesn't, and i'd believe that over anything Laser tell you :)

Jon Turner was involved heavily in the Boss and shared credit for the design thought his is forgotten in many records

I think these forums prove that beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder (and, of course there's a fair bit of 'confirmation bias' at work, for example I think my Spice is a great boat and looks gorgeous, even in yellow ). I would never describe a 49er as 'pretty' but a 505, Enterprise or Merlin (are modern Merlins the most beautiful boats ever?).....

As for what is a great boat, I suspect there are very few real 'dogs' out there these days, if you thing is I14s then a Spice is going to be a bit of a disappointment, despite being more or less the same length, weight and with not that much less white sail area. I would probably find an I14 a challenge too far and for me it would be a bad boat. In terms of smiles per dollar the Spice runs the Blaze close as the best boat I've ever owned but they have nearly all have given plenty of smiles (Oppi, Heron, OK, Laser, Ent, Spice, Blaze and Supernova. Not that many over 56 years sailing... Of those the worst by far was the Laser with the 'nova a very close second).

I crewed a 4k once or twice and didn't like it at all, somehow felt harsh......., and wing wang seemed an unreliable faff on.

As you say all very personal.

Funnily I also crewed a 5k a couple of times, once light and once heavy. I don't know about it being a heavy boat but the rig weighed so much if you let it heel too much it would fall over regardless of wind

Cheap, single trapeze, not too difficult to sail for the husband-and-wife team, and that too died on its @rse.

It all seems so long ago now but they were exciting times............

D

Only one of the big three nailed it is the answer :)

Topper and Laser flooded market with designs that had potential but were immature and designed to built far lighter and with better/more expensive materials than were actually used.

RS kept their powder dry until they were ready.

A better example of this is the Laser EPS vs the RS 300. The EPS is arguably a better - certainly a more versatile - boat, but the 300 was made properly and out of the materials it was designed to be made from.

I’ve never sailed an eps... but really?  The 300 is a spectacular race boat.

Have to agree - the EPS was an absolute dog.

LPE in their wisdom built it from polyester and CSM. And the rig wasn't brilliant either. Its no wonder its a dog compared to the 300 :)

Out of the two I know which I'd rather sail on the sea in any kind of wind. The 300 simply isn't a boat you can sail/race properly in a range of conditions and venues, which its probably why it never really took off either.

The wing attachments were always a weak point, and with the benefit of hindsight I suppose fixed racks would have been lighter, cheaper and better. Clever carbon rig setup too which is effectively unstayed but allowed rake to be adjusted. Yes the sail appeared to be less than optimum, it wouldn't point very well and it was b***dy uncomfortable downwind, but should have been the makings of a good boat imo.

The one I owned briefly was definitely polyester :) They do have foam in them, but lots of CSM.

It had lots of potential, but the 300 did most things better.

Neither really achieved popularity.

It had lots of potential, but the 300 did most things better.

[/QUOTE]

 

Disagree, it’s just needs to be sailed properly and shows up poor technique... 

Maybe the case. I wouldn't fancy sailing one around Mounts Bay in a force 5 SW though.

Like I said in my previous post, one (wo)man's un-sailable beast or boring old slug is another (wo)man's great boat.

Although it doesn't offer the raw power of the 4000, the RS500 offers good single wire asymmetric for lighter teams who don't want to battle with the 29er squad.   

 Fairly niche in the UK at the moment, but popular in mainland Europe.....60 boats at the 2019 Worlds and a British world champion so can't be dismissed as a training boat!

But for some reason hiking boats (200, 400, etc) seem to be preferred in the UK market.....maybe because of smaller waters and love of more tactical sailing.  

Personally I'd rather blast upwind in a trapeze boat rather slog it in a hiking boat!

How much of it is that more of us are sailing on smaller lakes because we aren't travelling anything like as much as we were 15 years ago?

1) Very high performance boats where the apparent wind is well forward leading to a significant spike in the VMG polars. Inevitably double trapeze.

2) Single-handed boats as a way to get more manageable downwind sail area than would otherwise be possible.

Both of these are small niches I would suggest.

Otherwise, a symmetric spinnaker for double-hander and single sail single-hander seem to be more suitable for racing at many venues, and there are plenty of trad classes to satisfy the former, with & without single trapeze.

"I'm pretty sure a 400 would be quicker over a W/L course with a largish conventional kite rather than the asymmetric in the majority of conditions".   

4000 too probably. My Javelin is the same kind of weight and sadly it never pays to zig zag down the course; the speed differential is never enough to justify the extra distance, seeing as we CAN run directly down wind, that is what we do.  Put a REALLY big kite on though .. and the 5o5s now sail the same angles down wind as up wind - may as well have gone asymmetric, getting the pole down on the deck and a better shaped kite for reaching (which is what they now do down wind).

Now, the ALTO was an interesting boat, a possible successor to the 4000 and a replacement for the Javelin and Osprey too .. but didn't really catch on.  Too trad for the skiffies and too asymmetric for the trads maybe. 

The difference is very exaggerated on Raceboards, DDW in displacement mode you are making maybe 3 knots, if you can get planing in the same conditions it'll be 10-12 knots. The trade off is if you drop off the plane when sailing the angles you are likely down the proverbial.....

All boat experience apparent wind. And boats going faster aren't generating more energy. But by sailing across the wind, rather than directly with it, their sails pass through a greater volume of air. The greater volume of air that the sails interact with, the more energy you have at your disposal. They aren't generating energy, or generating wind, per see. 

WRT low drag, that also applies to the hulls so 'skiffy' boats are better at it than trad boats.

It goose-winging the kite permitted in the 200 (I think I've read that it was but was later banned but that may be another class)?

Also curious about the Wayfarer/Wayfarer World (and, maybe Wanderer assy and sym kite versions)

 

not the first to tank test a 470, the greeks had a go in 2006 too.

stiffness is all wrong too for model versus full scale and the 470 is renowned for its softy spongy like nature 

All a bit of a waste of time really, 470's are small and cheap its better just to do full scale testing rather than waste money on models and tanks

Exactly.  And there are many 'asymetrics' that still don't really cut it.  Give the crews a ('permitted') option to goosewing the wretched sail and in many conditons and locations that is exactly what they would choose to do ...

oo-er Missus, now you tell us what the V-twin was really for 

FTFY

Note to self - stop it - you'll end up like a certain Kentishman