Ah... one design!

(The Daily Sail subscription website took a look at the equipment top Laser
sailors use to maximize their performance. Here are just a few excerpts
from their comprehensive story.)

When it comes to highly technical boats the Laser and Laser Radial are
usually not ones considered top of the list. Lasers are supposed to be
identical, the ultimate one design, and as if this weren't enough of a
great leveller when you attend the Laser World Championships your kit is
supplied to you and you must use that. While this might eliminate all
possibility of technical development, the Laser is still a manufactured
item, made to maximum and minimum tolerances, so there is a degree of
variation from boat to boat and as a result there are some technical ways
to improve your chances of winning. This may not help you at a World
Championship, but there are still many other events where the equipment is
not supplied and you can sail your own boat.

When a mast is made by Laser it has to weigh in between a set minimum and
maximum tolerance for it to be sold. Jon Emmett, a prominent Laser Radial
sailor and coach, explains how this can be used to your advantage: "The
method of manufacture for the Laser masts is extrusion and if you stick
them on accurate scales you know how heavy they are and the heavier they
are obviously the stiffer they are." To take the idea even further there
has been trend for competitors to buy their masts overseas. There was a
trend recently in the Laser Radial fleet of buying masts from Australia
because it was said that they were made closer to the top end of tolerance
than any other country.


From the Scuttlebut newsletter!

Hey... the Tornado's went to Carbon sticks because some teams spent a small fortune developing stiffer alu sticks which measured in ... but only a few teams had access to them!

ISAF was not pleased...
Either the class developed a LEVEL and Equitable playing field or they would loose their Olympic status.

So, the new carbon sticks are all built to extremely tight tolerances, measured at the Marstrom factory and certified according to ISO5000??? standards. ISAF keeps the log and verify's the measurements. If the independent ISAF measurer flunks your manufacturing process... your equipment is not legal and the competitors who use it will be DSQ'd.

Oh yeah... ALL ISAF classes will have to rewrite their class rules to fit the STANDARD template by 2008 and they will have an option to opt into the ISAF equipment certification programs.

You should see the laser measuring device US Sailing had to purchace inorder to spec out a Yingling, etc etc hull!!!

(information from the US Sailing One Design technical breakout session, Annapolis, MD Nov 2005)