headsail track usage

OK.  I'll keep em' for future reference. 

Silver,

Yeah I get that....I think my concern with the track stability and sail shape is germane to the cars question.  

I installed the Garhauer adjustable cars on my Hanse 37 last yr. Should have done it yrs ago. Work great. Considering purchase of L28. Downsizing.

One more thing: If one wishes to get the clew out, which would presumably be when head sail reaching, then it is better to place an "eye" in the deck near the outside and haul to that. The outside rail provided on the Laser will not take any load at all. You can use it more as a handy place to put rings for perhaps tying fenders, or securing lines in front to keep your sails on deck when fying the kite. We have removed those rails in that part of the boat anyway in order to make hiking more comfortable and it also keeps the deck from accumulating dirt which is otherwise trapped there.

How do you "in-haul"?

Love your explanation! And definitely want to see the pictures.   What was the PHRF result with the new headsail?

Not sure what a code 4 or code 5 is but on your last sentence .....
I have loved the snot out of my #1 for so many years for speed but you just can't make it point. You can sail on the leech and convince yourself your pointing but for me,, it was a delusion.
I have a lapper that is cut to be a powerhouse and it just seems to be the better all-around-option. There's no second guessing when the lapper is your biggest headsail; and the boat points like a mean teacher. js

The class Lapper was designed by Bruce Farr and as Frank says it's not the LP that makes it work but rather the max girths. This sail is designed so that it has the largest girths possible and will sheet 8.5" inside the spreader. FYI tacking it isn't an issue when the foredecker holds down the clew and walks it fwd a few feet. This sail can be raced at 8.5 knots and up. The class genoa is 0-12 true. However at 12 knots the Lapper has a slight edge pointing. Under 11 knots we have no issues pointing with other fast PHRF boats while using our Lower tracks.

Using a Genoa on the Lower track that was not designed for it will be flat and slow and we've seen lots of Genoas by other makers that fall into this category. Our Genoas are designed to fit both the upper original tracks and the Lower tracks. To simplify this, speed is point. If your sail is too flat or if it's not designed to sheet on the Lower track it, then it won't work. And if it has the wrong shape it won't work on the upper track either.

I wish we had the ability to compare sails, boats, etc, that we have here on the West Coast, with those that sail so competitively on the East Coast. Speaking to Bill, and other owners of top performing Lasers such as Colibri, they both enjoy their Evolution Genoa's (Colibri's may still have the Quantum label, but were from the same loft), and both seem to be able to point with other competitive boats. Though I think other boats that sail in the East also use other sail makers sails and are competitive, presumably with sails similar in design or copied from Evolution, or Bill's designs. That said, it is commonly heard from other Laser owners who are not in those One-Design fleets in Toronto and Montreal that they can't point with anybody in PHRF fleets when using their #1's, ourselves included. So either we don't know how to sail our boats, or all of us are working with inferior cut genoa's. Our genoa was originally a 153, cut by a Quantum loft, clearly not using Bill's design (though when I ordered it I thought all Quantum lofts had access to each other's design information) and we just got killed in #1 conditions even against "true dogs" in the fleet. Nothing would make the boat point until we cut that sail down and got the leach forward of the spreaders so we could get it in. I wish, I wish, I wish we had a modern Evolution sail of Bill's design here to try, but am loath to spend the money on a new hi-tech material sail that I fear won't point in our fleet. For reference a sampling of our Div 3 PHRF fleet includes Santana 30-30's, Spencer 36, C&C35 M-I, Frers 30, custom Tuloos 27, Custom Yamaha 36 with Jespersen Keel and hi-rig (almost unbeatable with PHRF of 115), J-30, two J-29's, Hotfoot 31. There are others, but it really doesn't matter.......they all killed us in #1 conditions unless it was just in ghosting conditions 0-4, when the Laser just moved a little easier. But in anything else, we just could not compete until we got into Lapper conditions, so much so that we only used our Genoa in super light conditions.

And just because it is early Saturday morning and I'm up early, I'll keep this thing going. The Laser was not originally designed to carry a Genoa, but meant to sail with the Lapper as its largest foresail. That being the case, the rig is built very light and is stayed by a seriously wide set of spreaders, necessitating the wide-set of the shrouds at the deck level. If the boat had been designed to carry a Genoa, it would have probably been double spreaders that were much narrower with the shrouds terminating directly against the corner of the cabin top and deck. The chainplates on the Laser are 11 degrees off center, where modern racing boat are now 7 and even in the day of the Laser they were somewhere around 9. But with the Laser the shrouds are in the way of the foot even when trimmed to the genoa block at 11. That at least creates a mental picture as to why we think it can't point. Then one speaks with Bill or Simone who are always at the top of the fleet, and they make their boats sail well against everything. So, Voila is currently a bit stalled in its sail development program, and the time is coming to make some decisions. Our genoa, since we cut it down, sees a lot of action and and was built in 2010 with almost no usage in the first two years when it was a 153. Now it is used most of the time and is breaking down. John, your own experience with an over-sized Main is very interesting as well, because any modern racing yacht today would be rigged with a larger main than ours. On the other hand, they would also have better balast/displacement ratio's. The Laser's is awful. The designed balast ratio was based on a boat that was supposed to weigh 3950 lbs, but in racing configuration, our Lasers weigh over 4600 lbs. Our keels were extremely small in area to start with, so the boat will go sideways if not kept upright, which also affects what can be done with the sail plan. So many variables!

All said, Voila remains a competitive machine as currently sailed, but is not simple to get the best performance from her. It is not a boat that sail's herself to the top of the fleet. We all could benefit from some sailing experience with the likes of Bill and those Laser sailers with crews and sails that really know how to make them go.

Good weekend to all.......we are off to go sailing!