VAGO

The Blaze is certainly a better boat than it was - now that it's on its third different sail design!  The only reason it is succesfull now is because the class association was enthusiastic enough to organise their own re-design!  The eps wasn't a sales success because Laser screwed the marketing of it and then stopped making them when the Vortex came out (and that seems to have vanished from their product listing too now).  I still have one (my second boat - it doesn't get sailed much these days) and I certainly wouldn't swap it for a Blaze - even though we actually have a Blaze fleet at my club.

I'm sure there isn't a huge amount of repeat business in the dinghy market - OK, maybe the really serious racers replace boats with new(er) versions of the same but most people that I know don't.  So the only way to get a lot of people to buy a new boat is to have something shiny and new for them.  So whenever sales start to drop off the big manufacturers ditch a model and replace it with something easier for them to sell. Good for sailing?   Nope.  Good for selling? Yup.

That's one aspect. Another is that it can be uneconomic to make hulls in batches of one. So it's OK when there is constant demand but once the demand is for only a few boats a year, the manufacturer won't make them at all. I was involved in running a class association that faced exactly this problem. We couldn't get the builder to make any more boats unless several would-be buyers came along at once.

are laser still making the 5000?

i have one of there catalouges from last year and on the front it says:
The Range
laser
laser radial
laser 4.7
laser pico
laser 2000
laser stratos
laser stratos keel
laser 4000
laser SB3
funboat

i presume this is all they have in production at the moment

the thing is the 4.7 ans radial are the same boat as the laser

the stratos and stratos keel are the same boat so laser are not really making many boats at the mo!!!

em i think that you forgot to mention the dart 16 and 18 as they are still making them!!

last i heard they have sold the molds for the 5000 to the class so i deff think their not making the 5000 any more pitty really to see so many good boats go out of production!