Class rules

My sail was originally made for slides by Quantum. However I did not like the way it set to the mast, so I switched to a rope luff. It was ok, but I felt the sail was too flat unless I removed all pre bend which would either compromise forestay tension, or require disproportionate tension in the lowers. At this time Quantum went bust so switched to North for help where we added more luff curve to conform better to the mast set up now more similar to yours. Now we modified the sail once more going back to slides and changed to a full batten on the 2nd from the top. At that batten we are using a special slide that has four little wheels on It that bear against the back of the mast to take the pressure of that batten. You will be able to guess that the sail looks better upwind than on a run because that full batten reverses the camber at that point as the shroud hits it.
You are also correct that the overlap between the roach and backstay is an issue, particularly at the 2nd batten. To compensate for that, we wrapped a large patch of what I think Jason refers to as Cuban Cloth. This is a very tough spectra fiber band aid that is coated with Teflon and is very slick. Combined with a 4mm slick Dynex Dux backstay it works ok. But just. Anymore mainsail than that will dictate the need for a whip up top n

The sail looks great and we do get a little better feel at the helm. Jason Rhodes provides input on my sails. He worked with Greg in Totonto years ago, then ran a Quantum loft in the states somewhere on the West Coast, then worked here for North and has a relationship with the North loft today. So he has been a large factor in things we have been doing recently and helped us gain about an average of 3-4 minutes per hour on the coarse. Voila is a constant work-in-progress.

nothing particularly interesting, it was just time. I went from slugs to a boltrope 

I am kind of a purist minimalist so I like your Ideas, the OD spin is so big to begin with I can't imagine going bigger.....our conditions vary greatly, Ontario can dish out some serious weather so we see it all. I really feel Farr hit it out of the park with this design, I feel the boat was about 15-20yrs ahead of it's time....he knew what he was doing and I really am convinced that except in ultra light air sheeting a lapper inside the spreaders is faster than a 155%. I was fortunate enough to be working in a loft last year and I built a new main can't wait to see how much better she will go this year.....another nice feature of having a lapper as the largest upwind headsail is cost  

I love this stuff! Thanks for playing. We also have dumped our code 5 genoa but still use a code 4 that trims inside the spreaders. We find this faster than the code 5 in all conditions ands we get a 3 point save.

We sail another Laser in Squamish where we only use the Lapper. Squamish is a predominantly windy area, so it pays off to keep the 6 points. How do you fair in ends under 8 knots with the lapper compared to your competition using 155's, etc. At what point do you feel the pain with lessor sail. Do you sail in smooth water, or do you have some chop and wave action? In smooth condition, we always enjoyed the 3 degree pointing advantage of the lapper. The lapper is far faster to tack as well.

We still speculate that the better solution would be a code 6 main coupled with a lapper, because the 3 point addition can be put to good use both upwind and down, and because the Laser is generally is quite neutral at the helm and could benefit from bringing some of the COE aft. It would be an expensive experiment if it did not work.

I know that the top One Design Laser sailors will weigh-in at this point with their experience of having sailed against other Lasers who have tried that, and that those changes did not help them against the standard "well-sailed" Laser. I can believe that. These boats have great potential, but getting that potential is not "slam-dunk" easy. So a well set-up Laser against an expertly sailed Laser would loose 9 out of 10 times. I would like to see what would happen if a modified sail plan Laser were sailed by the crew of Colibri, Convictus, or one of the other well oiled Laser crews.

As to synthetic standing rigging, we have always used it for the backstay. I would love to try it on the remainder of the standing rigging (Dynex Dux). Our local rater says that they will start off by charging me three phrf points, so we would have to carry a 16 second/hr penalty around the course both upwind and down. I think when we figure out how to organize the forestay, or I get comfortable with the notion of taking our foil off and changing all our headsail luff tapes to hanks (ouch), then we will probably go for it. Meanwhile, we are taking the vhf off the rig and putting it on the push-pit, replacing the #16 AWG triplex with 3 single-pled encased with this sort of finger-trap netted tubing that we got for $.39/ft. We are also breaking with Class compliance in that we have had a new spinnaker made to the max of code 9 with luff length of something like 33.2'. It looks a bit droopy flying from the current spinnaker hoist. I have machined a new minimalistic sheave box to take the 1/8" halyard core that it will have to accommodate and will place it on the mast about where the current steaming light goes.

We also dumped the spinnaker up haul to save weight and clutter aloft, and use the alternate jib halyard instead. Less if best.

Fun! fun! fun!

Yes, PBO is expensive, that is why we consider a "PBO-type" solution. That means a small braid or filament wound continuously around the end-piece thimbles and then bound in a jacket, or shrink wrapped on the ends where it enters the carbo foil so that the cargo foil does not wear on the line. I have two or three riggers prepared to make up such a line for me. Colligo Marine has also offered to build a forestay for my Laser should I choose to go with Dynex Dux for standing rigger. For sure there is a way. This morning I was fingering a roll of Spectra fishing braid and thinking of how to adapt that to the forestay solution. No very difficult.


Of course the easiest way by far is to get rid of the carbo foil and go back to hanks. Then one could just go with Dynex Dux all the way. We were thinking about this the other day when my friend asked me the question: "How many races did I do in 2012?" Followed by: "How many live head sail changes did you make?" It is a good question. I think I have had the Carbo foil on the boat since July 2008, and I am guessing that we have made perhaps only 3 headsail changes during a leg in that period. The foil weighs a considerable amount.

Recently a brand new Beaker 37 has come to our club. This is $450,000 of state-of-the -art in one package. They use hanks.

both Pandora & Chaos at Pultneyville Yacht Club here on the south shore of lake Ontario have dumped the wire cascade's in the backstay & vang, I went to synthetic lifelines as well and Chaos is not far behind, I will most likely be going to synthetic backstay this season. It's just a far superior product & IMHO safer. these would be the only deviations from OD rules but it would be enough to DSQ at a sanctioned OD event   I agree that it's time to consider taking a look at this section of the rules. 

Another question, Since I have my standing rig at the rigger for inspection, and I know I will have to replace the Cascade and will look at what you suggested. But also wanted to ask and consider the rigging option "PBO" anyone have experience with this?

My backstay has a thimble on both ends. At the top I use a double toggle. The top of the toggle is captured by the standard thru-pin. When I put mine together I had to use things that I had or could make, so at the bottom of the toggle it straddles the thimble(all centered), but I machined a little barrel/sleeve that the pin goes through to fix the space between the toggle so that I could use a 1/4" round head machine screw as the fixing pin secured by a nylon capped lock nut. The sleeve allows the nut to be tightened holding the toggle tight to the sleeve, but the thimble moves freely between the toggles because the space is fixed by the sleeve. The thimble rests on the sleeve.

At the bottom the thimble attaches to the first block of the cascade system via a D shackle, I think much like the original. I think most of my cascade hardware may be original with the metal Shafer at the top and a mix of stuff from my box, mostly small block Harken. The top of the cascade running the first 2:1 is maybe 3/16 dyneema, then it is mostly 1/8 th, all single braid until I get to the 4:1 control lines which are double braid standard junk line that is soft to the hand and about 7 or 8 mm. I will photograph the cascade today and send it to you for posting. Much of my 1/8th isn't pretty because it is just odd pieces of dyneema I had laying around to make up the cascade.

When I bought my boat in 2008 it had a spectra (dyneema) back stay that had been on it for years. It also had spectra tapered halyards that went back to 2005, still good. I have since changed the back stay and down sized it to 4mm and shortened it, and all halyards are dyneema and tapered. No problems with anything. If you have burrs on your sheave boxes, they were caused by the wear from the rubbing of the previous stainless wire halyards that wear on the sides. My boxes are fine and there is zero wear on my halyards. Our halyards are 1/4" before tapering, so we are only 1/8" dyneema on the core.......no failures nor wear on the halyards at all.

Regarding standing rigging, they do use standard turnbuckles for take-up, though multiple lashings are an alternative, mostly used on cruisers and multi hulls. Boats like ours use turnbuckles. Dux creeps very little as it is already pre-stretched. There is initial movement, but it is the mechanical take-up of the splices and settling into the terminating thimbles. Once that is taken up, there is no creep in the line.

I am not trying to sell the stuff, it is not my business. However the notion that dyneema is risky in the use of back stays and halyards is totally without foundation, unless the yacht is not properly set up. We have no visible wear on our dyneema other than some light fraying on our tapered spinnaker sheets that rub through the beak of the pole end, but the same tapered lines still go on for years in that use.

I wouldn't be so quick to start recommending dux for standing rigging. It's one thing for the backstay that we are adjusting constantly. From what I understand, dux has a lot of creep and would require constant adjusting, beyond what you could accomplish with regular turnbuckles -- they do not have enough range. I think there is a ways to go before it becomes a viable option.