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Steve411 View Drop Down
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Joined: 09 Sep 08
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Posts: 701 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Steve411 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 16 at 5:54pm
I sailed a Laser for the first time in 30 years yesterday. I also found 5p in the dinghy park so I was lucky on two fronts.
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jeffers View Drop Down
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Posts: 3024 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jeffers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 16 at 4:23pm
Originally posted by RS400atC

Originally posted by bustinben

Originally posted by jeffers

Originally posted by Rupert

I was talking to someone today who had just been out sailing in his new (to him) Laser. Words such as "great fun", and "lovely" were used, and at no point "unrewarding".

A Laser can be very rewarding to sail especially in a good fleet. However there are lots of boats that give a better sailing experience but none of them have the worldwide critical mass of the Laser.

It all depends on how you define rewarding after all.  In some ways the fact that the laser is an utter pig to sail is its strength.  It's very difficult to get it to sail well, and learning to do so is what can give you that sense of reward.    There's nothing that your sailmaker can tell you, or a bunches of settings you can tweak to make the boat go.  It's all about you and how you interact with it.

A laser gives you a simple boat, loads of people to race against so you can gauge your performance. It's not slow in a breeze either. And for a club level boat, excellent value. Buy a used one, sail it a few years and depreciation and other costs will be pretty low. Any of the alternatives can go out of fashon and cost you a bomb in depreciation. That matters to some people.

Definitely. For cheap thrills and good racing you cannot go far wrong. Until you reach a certain age and cannot live with the downside.

Horses for courses, I would say a majority of the UK dinghy population has sailed a laser at least once.
Paul
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RS400atC View Drop Down
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Joined: 04 Dec 08
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Posts: 2957 		Post Options Post Options   Quote RS400atC Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 16 at 4:17pm
Originally posted by bustinben

Originally posted by jeffers

Originally posted by Rupert

I was talking to someone today who had just been out sailing in his new (to him) Laser. Words such as "great fun", and "lovely" were used, and at no point "unrewarding".

A Laser can be very rewarding to sail especially in a good fleet. However there are lots of boats that give a better sailing experience but none of them have the worldwide critical mass of the Laser.

It all depends on how you define rewarding after all.  In some ways the fact that the laser is an utter pig to sail is its strength.  It's very difficult to get it to sail well, and learning to do so is what can give you that sense of reward.    There's nothing that your sailmaker can tell you, or a bunches of settings you can tweak to make the boat go.  It's all about you and how you interact with it.

A laser gives you a simple boat, loads of people to race against so you can gauge your performance. It's not slow in a breeze either. And for a club level boat, excellent value. Buy a used one, sail it a few years and depreciation and other costs will be pretty low. Any of the alternatives can go out of fashon and cost you a bomb in depreciation. That matters to some people.
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jeffers View Drop Down
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Posts: 3024 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jeffers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 16 at 4:13pm
Originally posted by bustinben

Originally posted by jeffers

Originally posted by Rupert

I was talking to someone today who had just been out sailing in his new (to him) Laser. Words such as "great fun", and "lovely" were used, and at no point "unrewarding".

A Laser can be very rewarding to sail especially in a good fleet. However there are lots of boats that give a better sailing experience but none of them have the worldwide critical mass of the Laser.

It all depends on how you define rewarding after all.  In some ways the fact that the laser is an utter pig to sail is its strength.  It's very difficult to get it to sail well, and learning to do so is what can give you that sense of reward.    There's nothing that your sailmaker can tell you, or a bunches of settings you can tweak to make the boat go.  It's all about you and how you interact with it.

I find it responds to brute force rather than finesse in most conditions. However some of the best racing I have had dinghy sailing has been in a Laser. I just decided I didn't like being in pain for days after due to the ergonomics so (eventually) moved on.
Paul
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bustinben View Drop Down
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Posts: 288 		Post Options Post Options   Quote bustinben Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 16 at 3:25pm
Originally posted by jeffers

Originally posted by Rupert

I was talking to someone today who had just been out sailing in his new (to him) Laser. Words such as "great fun", and "lovely" were used, and at no point "unrewarding".

A Laser can be very rewarding to sail especially in a good fleet. However there are lots of boats that give a better sailing experience but none of them have the worldwide critical mass of the Laser.

It all depends on how you define rewarding after all.  In some ways the fact that the laser is an utter pig to sail is its strength.  It's very difficult to get it to sail well, and learning to do so is what can give you that sense of reward.    There's nothing that your sailmaker can tell you, or a bunches of settings you can tweak to make the boat go.  It's all about you and how you interact with it.
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Rupert View Drop Down
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Posts: 8764 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Rupert Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 16 at 10:37am
He was just poddling around, no fleet, no racing.

On the other hand, we had a couple of Aeros out racing yesterday, with a skilled sailor in the 9, and it was flying along. Looked like he was having fun, too!
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jeffers View Drop Down
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Posts: 3024 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jeffers Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Jun 16 at 9:49am
Originally posted by Rupert

I was talking to someone today who had just been out sailing in his new (to him) Laser. Words such as "great fun", and "lovely" were used, and at no point "unrewarding".

A Laser can be very rewarding to sail especially in a good fleet. However there are lots of boats that give a better sailing experience but none of them have the worldwide critical mass of the Laser.
Paul
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zippyRN View Drop Down
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Posts: 437 		Post Options Post Options   Quote zippyRN Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Jun 16 at 4:05pm
Originally posted by Oinks

Compared to other boats Lasers are unrefined and unrewarding to sail. If you can find a club fleet where there are enough boats to constitute a decent race, fair enough. Twenty years ago, we'd have 15-20 Lasers out racing on a Sunday. Not now, and people are starting to look more modern singlehanders that give a better sailing experience. Just the way it is from my POV.

I think most people  can  put arguments  that SMODs  are unrefined in some  nature 

I wouldn't call the laser unrewarding  by any  stretch ofthe imagination, yes it;s hard  work at times ,  it rewards  good technique  ( i.e. becasue of it's lack of rudder authority ) 
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Oinks View Drop Down
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Posts: 259 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Oinks Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Jun 16 at 10:43am
Well, I did say it was my point of view, that implies others may have - and are perfectly entitled to - a different point of view. And my POV is the result of what I see and hear. Perfectly valid. I moved on from Lasers years ago and I consider the class I sail now is a more refined and more rewarding boat to sail. Others hold a similar view. Indeed, some years ago an ex-Laser European Champ said to me along the lines ... "don't understand why I didn't change classes years ago". The Laser remains one of the most active, popular, competitive classes on the planet - for perfectly good reasons - but in much the same way that a Ford Fiesta is one of the best selling cars. And compared to other cars I'd say it is less refined and less rewarding to drive. Again just my POV.
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Chris 249 View Drop Down
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Posts: 2041 		Post Options Post Options   Quote Chris 249 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 Jun 16 at 9:59am
Originally posted by SimonW99

The Laser has been set in concrete for years whereas the Supernova has evolved. I was a long time Laser sailor at club level and have no issue with anyone sailing one where there is a fleet. However its appalling lack of development is a joke 


The Laser has not been set in concrete for years - it got a new big sail very recently.

To see the Laser as suffering from an "appalling lack of development" is a very one-eyed, UK-centric point of view. That is, of course, fine on a UK forum in some ways, but it's also reasonable to point out that it's a parochial viewpoint.

In most places, most people don't really see any need for development in the way the UK does, because dinghy sailing has a different structure. To many of us, development in a one design boat is appalling because it destroys the very nature of a SMOD.  Why on earth would I want a "better" Laser when the main reason I sail them is because there isn't really any such thing? Any international class has to come to terms with the basic issue that there is a different (and I do mean different, NOT better or worse) attitude to development in other countries.

One may as well say that the Supernova is a joke. The old boats are now significantly heavier and yet the class is still ridiculously small and parochial, the new boats are still appallingly slow and still appallingly uncomfortable from some points of view. But what is the point of us sitting here and slinging c**p at other people who dare to have different needs, desires and tastes?  It's all relative - to some of us the idea of rating this sort of boats according to their speed is like rating a bonsai tree according to its height.
And what is wrong with merely allowing other people to like the boat they like?

Sorry to continue the thread diversion, but it did start with someone choosing to have a got at Lasers in a topic about another boat.










Edited by Chris 249 - 05 Jun 16 at 10:08am
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