The Laser Class has a Sail Problem

"Class Legal" Radial Sail - Picture from Mikko Brunner's Post
on The Sailors Voice Facebook Group
NOTE: The laser class informed us that there was indeed a problem with the new full rig / standard sail, and that it has been resolved. It is not aware of the problem regarding the Radial sail, as in picture, which is apparently referred to by Mr Brunner (see below).

Mr Brunner did unfortunately not reply immediately to a request for clarification sent by email. Yet he has now confirmed (April 2019) he was referring to the 3rd day at the 2017 Laser Worlds (senior).  Those sail breakage problems are explained in this video featuring interviews of several of the world's top sailors and coaches. 

The pretty expensive price of class Laser sails, versus non-class sails, is pretty well known.

For example, a class Radial sail is priced US$595, whereas you can get a non-class sail for ... US$119!

Now, it's hard to believe that a class sail is much more expensive to manufacture. They are essentially the same sails. If anyone can enlighten us about the price difference .... let us know.

Now, what is emerging publicly on The Sailors Voice forum is that there is a real quality issue with the "class legal" Laser sails. This is an issue that is well known to many Laser sailors already for a while, yet has not yet been fixed.

Here are excerpts of a posting by Mikko Brunner, a professional sail maker from Finland.

"On the first/* day of the Laser worlds 2017 last fall, 19 sails failed in the same manner, and those sailors scored 2 DNFs for the day. The organizers arranged to fix all sails overnight, but the sailors got no redress and their regatta was in practice over."

(/* this actually relates to the third day of the 2017 Laser Worlds. Several sailors broke their sail and did not finish, others continued sailing, but at reduced speed - see interviews in the video)

"Recently, we reinforced 5 brand new sails, because the (anonymous) sailor did not want them to break the same way - illegal, as you are not allowed to change anything on the sails. They buy them 5 at the time, in hope of getting at least one decent racing sail and use others for practice."

"Laser sails are now built by North, Hyde and Neil Pryde (whose decision was that? We are constantly asked if we could make them). There are quality differences between the different brand sails."

From this post, it appears that quality is so poor / unequal, that you need to buy 5 sails !! and test them, and hope to have one that will perform well!

So that brings the price of one race sail to 5 x US$595 = US$2975 !! (add the taxes obviously)

This is obviously unacceptable. Yet the problem is not a new one, and it appears that it has yet to be fixed!

In the mean time, the very manufacturer of the Laser - the Laser Performance corporation - is now offering its own brand of non-class sails!

Update (June 10)

Here is a quote from ILCA's World Council meeeting of Nov 2017:

"Likewise, sample sails from several lofts were also compared and tested and all were found to be well within the specifications for construction and performance."

https://www.laserinternational.org/.../2017-world.../

Obviously, the kind of audits, quality control, they do is not enough.

Sources:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/7041592283/

http://www.laserperformance.us/Sail-Laser-Radial-Training?lang=en_US

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