Comparison of Sunfish vs. Laser?
George Bunting
use in the S.F. Bay area? The criteria that come to mind immmed-
iately are ...
Safety - Abilty to survive and return to launch in high (and low)
wind and chop? Tendency to capsize, ease of recovery, likelyhood
of getting (mast) stuck in mud?
Performance - Speed upwind/downwind, ease of planing?
Cost - To purchase used, plus maintenance and durability?
Cartop-ability - Is this practical for either one?
Rigging - Ease, complexity?
Fun - The bottom line? 8-)
P.S. - If you've got one for sale in the Bay area, please let
me know that too.
Thanks,
g...@netcom.com
Louis B. Brydon
> What are the pros and cons of these 2 dinghys, for recreational
> use in the S.F. Bay area? The criteria that come to mind immmed-
> iately are ...
LASER LASER LASER !!!
Easier self rescue. Faster. Points higher. Easier to reef. Will
do better with two people. Mast is taller, but if you're on the ball
you should turtle. Both are heavy and not easy to bench press up on
to the car top. Consider a trailer. The LASER has a little more beam.
Both are easy to rig. IMHO, LASERs are more fun. LASERs are probably
more expensive (used). I'm guessing $500-$1,000 depending on condition
and useage. The LASER will get significant hull flex after seasons of
servere sailing/racing.
--
Louis B. Brydon
bry...@orca.ssd.loral.com
WA6OCZ
SEASTAR - Redwood City, Ca, Ba, USA, Terra, Sol, Milkyway
Ramsborg Joel
>What are the pros and cons of these 2 dinghys, for recreational
>use in the S.F. Bay area? The criteria that come to mind immmed-
>iately are ...
Definitly go for the Laser if you can. It will be quite a bit faster than
the Sunfish, and a lot more fun!
Joel
--
_____________________________________________________________________________
Joel C. Ramsborg CAE Training Staff - Rm 277 CAE
926 College Court #218 >\\\|/< University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI 53715 USA |_"""_| Home Phone: 608/251-4238
rams...@cae.wisc.edu (O) (o) Work Phone: 608/265-2636
__________________________.oOOO (_) OOOo.__________________________________
http://www.engr.wisc.edu/~ramsborg
Sail59115
were in a Sunfish. Unless you're a gorilla like Mark Brink most people are
overpowered in a Laser in any thing over 15. boats should weigh the same.
128-132lbs. Prices should be comparable except Lasers are more new. Laser
fleet is more prevalent on West Coast. Sunfish are much more stable. If
you are beginning, sunfish is what to start in for SF Bay conditions.
Palmer Davis
and my fiancee's family used to own a Sunfish that I also sailed fairly
regularly.
>Safety - Abilty to survive and return to launch in high (and low)
>wind and chop? Tendency to capsize, ease of recovery, likelyhood
>of getting (mast) stuck in mud?
The Laser has a much larger sail that fits over the mast with a sleeve,
and can't be lowered or reefed, so you don't have the option of dropping
the sail in survival conditions like you do on the Sunfish. She also
tends to death roll (capsize to windward) off the wind in heavy air if
you don't have enough vang or sheet tension set. The mast is taller, and
the Sunfish's lateen yard can be eased if it catches on the bottom, so
the possibility of burying the mast exists on the Laser in deeper waters
than it does on the Sunfish. However, the Laser's mast floats, so if
you're reasonably prompt about starting your recovery, you'll hardly
ever turn turtle unless the sail stays full after a death roll. And if
you're sailing on San Francisco Bay, you'll spend most of your time in
waters too deep for burying the mast to be a problem.
The Sunfish has a narrower beam, and will go over quite readily and turn
turtle more easily than the Laser (and be harder to get back up) if you
aren't quick about getting on the daggerboard. Both boats self-rescue
easily, though the wider beam of the Laser makes it a little harder to get
onto the centerboard if you didn't crawl over the gunwale as the boat was
capsizing, and the big sail can require a bit more strength in a breeze.
Your skill is more likely to determine how often you go over and how
quickly you get back up than the difference between the two boats. Once
you reach a certain level of skill, you can feather the boat or dump the
main (or pump it off the wind) to keep from capsizing, and sail in nearly
any wind without going over. I've gone out in my Laser in winds of 35-40+
more than once to rescue other boats that have gotten into trouble.
As for returning to launch, the Laser becomes impossible to hold on the
wind once it gets over 40 knots, but you can go out and safely reach back
and forth even in really insane conditions. If you get caught downwind
of your launch site when a squall hits, you can always reach in to the
nearest point on shore (and get there very quickly!) and wait it out.
The Sunfish is more likely to capsize in survival conditions (narrow beam,
no way to flatten the sail), but you have the option of dropping the sail.
>Performance - Speed upwind/downwind, ease of planing?
No contest: the Laser eats the Sunfish for lunch. The Sunfish moves
well enough that you don't feel like you're as slow as you really are,
and she'll plane readily enough off the wind, but the Laser is a *lot*
faster in all conditions. The Laser is lighter and has more sail area,
so she'll keep moving in a drifter that stops a Sunfish dead, and when
the wind picks up, you go Mach 2 with your hair on fire.
>Cost - To purchase used, plus maintenance and durability?
Laser prices have gone sharply up in recent years due to the boat being
selected for the Olympic Games. You might be able to find a really old
boat for under $1000, but late model used boats nowadays go for upwards
of $2000, with new boats selling for $3600+. Used Sunfish seem to start
near $500, with new boats selling for $2500 or so. You might be able
to get a "fixer-upper" for less.
As for durability, old Sunfish are practically indestructible. You may
need to fix a leak along the gunwale or daggerboard trunk, dry out the
interior to get the boat back to minimum weight, or replace some worn-out
old hardware, but the boat resists dings and scratches marvelously well.
Newer Sunfish manufactured by Sunfish-Laser are reportedly not as durable
as older Alcort and AMF boats were.
It used to be that Lasers were pretty much all interchangeable -- you
could take just about any boat, including an old, beat up one, and win
major events with it. That no longer seems to be the case -- conventional
wisdom has it that a boat is pretty much no longer competitive after a
couple seasons of hard sailing. I'm not sure why that is, but it's a
very disturbing trend. Maybe it's the new manufacturer, in which case
an old boat should hold up as well as it used to. Lasers are a bit more
prone to scratches than Sunfish; you'll want to sand the hull with 400
or 600 grit sandpaper at the start of the season, and avoid pulling the
boat up onto the beach.
>Cartop-ability - Is this practical for either one?
For both. The Laser weighs 135 lbs, the Sunfish more, so you'll need
two people to get the boat up there, but it's quite doable. If you
install inspection ports in the foredeck and fantail, cartopping also
has the benefit of drying out the interior.
>Rigging - Ease, complexity?
Sunfish: trivial. Just stick the mast through the retaining rings on
the boom and lateen yard, put it in the step, hook up the mainsheet and
halyard, put in the tiller, rudder, and daggerboard, raise the sail, and
off you go. The only control you really have to worry about is the
mainsheet. She's an easy boat to learn to sail, the first that I took
out by myself when I was a kid.
Laser: still fairly simple, but a bit more complex, with controls for
the outhaul, cunningham, and vang that give you a lot more control over
your sail shape. She'll teach you how to sail larger boats.
>Fun - The bottom line? 8-)
Get a Laser.
I should qualify that: if you have a family and want to take the kids
out on it and teach them to sail, a Sunfish is probably the better choice.
The Laser is a very athletic boat that's a lot of fun if you're a 200 lb
adult male in good physical shape. The Sunfish can be easily sailed by
a kid, and you can take a passenger without the passenger getting in your
way like he or she would on a Laser. But if it's just for you, the Laser
is a lot more fun to sail. There's also very competitive (and very fun)
racing at levels from casual club racing all the way up to the Olympic
Games.
-- PTD --
(formerly) *-- 44804
--
---
Palmer T. Davis <pal...@ansoft.com>
Ansoft Corporation, Four Station Square, Suite 660, Pittsburgh, PA 15219
http://www.ansoft.com/palmer/home.html
Scott Truesdell
> It used to be that Lasers were pretty much all interchangeable -- you
> could take just about any boat, including an old, beat up one, and win
> major events with it.
When? How early? Certainly not by the time there were 2,000 of the things.
The two-season racing life was already in effect when I bought hull number
2106 new in 1972 or thereabouts. Less than two seasons if the boat saw a
lot of heavy air. When I bought 2106 new, the oldest boat was just a bit
more than one season old so, sure, at that point you could hop into the
oldest boat and be competitive. The oldest boat, however, fell within the
two-season competitive lifespan. Already at that time, the smart sailors
would charter a new Laser at the site of major events, which Performance
Sailcraft would bring in by the truckload. You had to reserve one early
because by well before the first starting gun, brother, they were all
snapped up. After the event, Performance Sailcraft would sell them
slightly used for a reduced cost.
> That no longer seems to be the case -- conventional
> wisdom has it that a boat is pretty much no longer competitive after a
> couple seasons of hard sailing. I'm not sure why that is, but it's a
> very disturbing trend. Maybe it's the new manufacturer, in which case
> an old boat should hold up as well as it used to.
Part of the problem is the construction. It is a foam cored construction,
but the core is insufficiently thick to provide enough panel thickness to
deliver the benefits. It is less than 1/8 inch thick core (more like 1/6
inch), as I remember. So the panels will flex, leading to delamination.
Once delamination has spread beyond local spots, the entire boat becomes
soft and flexible. Hike hard in a puff and the mast stays in the same
place while the boat twists and the aft half of the deck gets more
upright. This HURTS racing performance. You know it's time for a new boat
when you hike hard and you hear it crackle.
For a college kid on a very low budget, this broke my heart.
--scott
P.S.
I learned more on that boat in two seasons than I have learned at any
other time in my sailing. Virtually everything I know about starting,
tactics, big regatta strategy, planning, boat handling... everything, I
learned on that boat. I had romance, adventure, got jobs because of it,
saved a life, cruised it, almost died in Baja with it, got blown off it,
experienced magic, matured emotionally, met great people, wasted my knees,
experenced the complete merging of human and boat, got tough and lean...
It was probably the best two years of my life.
Finn260
here on the East Coast might run around $1100 +/-, a competitive boat will
be 2 to 3 times that amount here.
If you weigh in at 200 lbs or more, a Finn is to a Laser as a Ferrari is
to a Miata!
Good luck,
Art Diefendorf
Daniel T.
>Part of the problem is the construction. It is a foam cored construction,
>but the core is insufficiently thick to provide enough panel thickness to
>deliver the benefits. It is less than 1/8 inch thick core (more like 1/6
>inch), as I remember. So the panels will flex, leading to delamination.
>Once delamination has spread beyond local spots, the entire boat becomes
>soft and flexible. Hike hard in a puff and the mast stays in the same
>place while the boat twists and the aft half of the deck gets more
>upright. This HURTS racing performance. You know it's time for a new boat
>when you hike hard and you hear it crackle.
I find this a significant drawback to the Laser and was wondering if
anybody knows if the Laser II suffers from the same problem?
------------------+------------------------------------------
Daniel T. | SCA: Lord Nicolas Bradwater, Deputy KMoC
Clearwater, FL | IGS: DanielT
dani...@gate.net | IRC: DanielT
Mike Bees
: true...@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) wrote:
: I find this a significant drawback to the Laser and was wondering if
: anybody knows if the Laser II suffers from the same problem?
AFAIK none of the lasers (I, II, 5000) use foam sandwich construction, it's
just lots of chopped strand mat, blown into the mould through a hose. This
is a very cheap way to make a boat but... not for nothing is the 5000
now known as the 5-tonner.
Mike
Isaiah Laderman
hard to plan a tacking course. Other rigs don't have this problem.
Sunfish, Sailfish, and many other small boats respond in an erratic fashion to
changes in wind and angle. The Laser is more consistent than most other small boats.
Sunfish/Sailfish perform poorly in many directions, due to poor rig and rigging.
Other boats, Laser included, perform much better.
Sunfish/Sailfish seem to capsize more frequently than other boats, though that may
be due to a greater proportion of novices sailing them.
Rob Bunten
>
> AFAIK none of the lasers (I, II, 5000) use foam sandwich construction, it's
> just lots of chopped strand mat, blown into the mould through a hose. This
> is a very cheap way to make a boat but... not for nothing is the 5000
> now known as the 5-tonner.
The 4000 uses foam-sandwich construction. The fully-rigged
weight (without weight-equalisation lead) is claimed to be the
same as a 470. Closest they've got yet to a well-constructed
boat - now if only they hadn't put that stupid gnav (sic) on it
and bothered about weight-equalisation...
--
Rob Bunten Voice: +44-71-516-2949
CS First Boston, London e-mail: rbu...@csfp.co.uk
Malcolm Osborne
>
> Daniel T. (dani...@gate.net) wrote:
> : true...@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) wrote:
>
> : I find this a significant drawback to the Laser and was wondering if
> : anybody knows if the Laser II suffers from the same problem?
>
> just lots of chopped strand mat, blown into the mould through a hose. This
> is a very cheap way to make a boat but... not for nothing is the 5000
> now known as the 5-tonner.
>
The Laser I has foam sandwich in the deck, to provide the necessary
stiffness in that area. I know this 'cos I've got delamination there!
There are longitudinal stiffeners in the lower hull, glassed in.
Malcolm Osborne
Pretoria South Africa
Elaine Chapin
Sunfish and the Laser are as listed below.
Sunfish: LOA 13'10", LWL 13'0", Beam 4'1", Dspl 129 lbs., Sail Area 75 sq. ft.
Laser: 13'11", 13'0", 4'6", 125 76
As other posters have noted the Laser is a bit beamier. However, the
sail area of the two boats is almost identical. I have no firm data to
support my contention, but I think that the Laser is heavier. Either boat
will take two people to car top, which is sort of a bummer for a one
person boat.
Which boat should you buy? That depends on your size, local class organization,
your level of experience, etc. Both boats are widely sailed reasonable choices.
-Elaine Chapin
http://www.cen.uiuc.edu/~ec10576/ e-ch...@uiuc.edu
76060
easy, primitive boats (no insult intended). My favorite boat to sail is my Dyer
Dink 7'-11" (also primitive), next is my secondhand Laser and a close third
is our C&C 29. Of them, the Laser is the only one which will jump up on a plane
and kick up a rooster tail dead downwind in 25 knots, evoking a "YEE HAH!"
from a 45 year old sailor. Nothing like skipping your butt in a wetsuit across
the waves with enough speed to bail the cockpit through a hole in the bottom
of the boat. Not a family sort of yacht, however. Hope this humble opinion helps.
Steve Blunden
grano...@gmail.com
> What are the pros and cons of these 2 dinghys, for recreational
> use in the S.F. Bay area? The criteria that come to mind immmed-
> iately are ...
>
> wind and chop? Tendency to capsize, ease of recovery, likelyhood
> of getting (mast) stuck in mud?
>
>
>
>
> Fun - The bottom line? 8-)
>
> me know that too.
>
> Thanks,
> g...@netcom.com
gfre...@aol.com
sails are still serviceable but he plans on new ones if he actually
starts using it enough. That may be the issue tho. In the driveway
they are all pretty much the same.
waynebatr...@hotmail.com
The Laser has a more efficient rig but it also capsizes easily.
Alex
waynebatr...@hotmail.com
Some Usenet servers have a long retention period. Storage is really
inexpensive these days and text postings take very little space.
gfre...@aol.com
for years but the google groupers here can't see my posts when I do.
I doubt google actually does not archive those posts, they just don't
admit they are there.
Tim
- show quoted text -
Probably. People search a subject of interested to them, then chime in.
John H.
>Alex
>- show quoted text -
>That's a 24 year old post. How do people find those? Google Groups??
>
>
>Probably. People search a subject of interested to them, then chime in.
Alex
> On Mon, 23 Dec 2019 10:14:45 -0800 (PST), Tim <tsch...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Alex
>> - show quoted text -
>> That's a 24 year old post. How do people find those? Google Groups??
>>
>>
>> Probably. People search a subject of interested to them, then chime in.
> Just think, in 25 years someone will discover our enchilada thread.
asshole will live on forever!
John H.
>John H. wrote:
>> On Mon, 23 Dec 2019 10:14:45 -0800 (PST), Tim <tsch...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Alex
>>> - show quoted text -
>>> That's a 24 year old post. How do people find those? Google Groups??
>>>
>>>
>>> Probably. People search a subject of interested to them, then chime in.
>> Just think, in 25 years someone will discover our enchilada thread.
>
>I never thought of that. Fat Harry's legacy as a lying, deadbeat,
>asshole will live on forever!
Phant...@gmail.com
>>>> The Laser has a more efficient rig but it also capsizes easily.
>I doubt google actually does not archive those posts, they just don't
>admit they are there.
different than a standard Sunfish hull but they replaced the lateen
rig with a Laser mast/boom and sail. Seemed to me at the time to be
the best of both worlds. But I guess it didn't catch on. I don't see
them around much anymore.
Didn't Deja News end up being bought by Google? I thought archiving
usenet posts was the specific reason for buying it.