Looper
Anarchist
Follow-up question. Are there any dealers in North America that actually have a Sunfish in stock?
US ILCA 7 representative for Paris 2024
- Thread starter Admiral Hornblower
- Start date
Looper
Anarchist
I would argue that this is a very "American" view/opinion. One might ask a Laser Sailor outside North America if they feel the same way. I bet the viewpoint is drastically different.
Wess
Super Anarchist
Well then tell me when the last 3rd world nation won a medal...
I agree that if your goal is solely to have as many nations on the starting line at the Olympics as possible and not give a shit as to if they are actually competitive or if we are growing the sport of sailing then yea Laser instead of Moth. But freaking ILCA made Laser worse by making the boat more not less expensive under FRAND. By a lot! So LESS accessible. And so if that is your goal then you should be pushing ILCA in a different direction IMHO. The lemming here will twist and turn and endlessly spin but the ILCA is way more expensive than the Laser was and despite ILCA leadership endlessly saying they would make it less expensive under FRAND the plain and simple fact is its more expensive.
I agree that if your goal is solely to have as many nations on the starting line at the Olympics as possible and not give a shit as to if they are actually competitive or if we are growing the sport of sailing then yea Laser instead of Moth. But freaking ILCA made Laser worse by making the boat more not less expensive under FRAND. By a lot! So LESS accessible. And so if that is your goal then you should be pushing ILCA in a different direction IMHO. The lemming here will twist and turn and endlessly spin but the ILCA is way more expensive than the Laser was and despite ILCA leadership endlessly saying they would make it less expensive under FRAND the plain and simple fact is its more expensive.
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tillerman
Super Anarchist
I received an email from a local Sunfish dealer last week saying, "We have an order of Sunfish heading our way and there are a few boats still available. Due to the timing of the shipment, these are the last boats available at the 2022 price before the 2023 price change. These boats are estimated to arrive within the next 2 weeks as they make their way here from Portugal."
The same dealer was offering Sunfish from the 2022 Sunfish Worlds in Italy last summer.
So, I don't know if dealers in US generally have Sunfish "in stock" but it seems like this dealer has new Sunfish (or nearly new) Sunfish for sale from time to time.
Bill5
Right now
"Your" goal? I believe you spelled IOC incorrectly. Name one Olympic sport where the bottom half of the qualifying competitors actually stand a chance of winning a medal (barring a Miracle on Ice...). And if you would remove your cranium from your large intestine for a brief moment, you would realize and acknowledge that race-quality used Lasers/ILCA's are readily available most everywhere. So let's say a nation doesn't have a chance of winning a medal (and that list includes Canada and US these days...). A sailor could qualify in their own country in a $7,500 boat then sail a more expensive boat at the Worlds and the Olympics. Your aversion to used boats is very odd. And do tell us the dollar difference amount - an actual number (or range) - that the ILCA should cost that would give us this dream-state where a new boat moves the dial in terms of global participation. Would a fully loaded brand new ILCA for $8000 change things? Would fleets pop up everywhere? And what actions could ILCA take to reduce the price to $8000? 3.2 ounce sails, 3 part vangs, 2 part cunnos, and wood tillers will get us part way. What you are looking for is a time machine, Wess. And I don't know of any class association that has one. (I love this place!)
Wess
Super Anarchist
But yet your ILCA leadership said it would be less expensive Bill. Remember that? Over and over again. Including here in writing on SA no? So it ain't me asking for one; it was them claiming they had one. Twist on lemming!
And BTW have you priced, purchased or sailed a 99-er?
Lord I love this place. Happy weekend all!
And BTW have you priced, purchased or sailed a 99-er?
Lord I love this place. Happy weekend all!
That's the truth!
tillerman
Super Anarchist
Just in case you want to qualify your country to sail a Laser in the Olympics...There are a number of sailing Olympic Qualifiers for Paris 2024, which award quotas in the following order:
2023 Sailing World Championships
The event will take place in The Hague, Netherlands, from 10-20 August 2023, and will award 107 quota places. The highest placed NOCs in each of the 10 events will be awarded quotas as following:- Windsurfing: 11 per gender
- Kite: 8 per gender
- Dinghy: 16 per gender, 8 for mixed
- Skiff: 10 per gender
- Mixed Multihull: 9
2024 ILCA World Championships, various
The highest NOCs not already qualified at the 2023 World Championships will qualify for the men’s and women’s Dinghy events. Fourteen quotas will be awarded (seven per gender). The city and date of the events are to be confirmed.2023/2024 Continental Qualification Events, various
The highest placed NOCs at continental events that have not already qualified at the 2023 World Championships or the 2024 ILCA World Championships will receive quota places.There will be one quota place available per class in each region(Africa, Asia, Central & South America, Europe, North America & Caribbean, and Oceania), except for men's and women's Dinghy(three quota places for Asia per gender, and two quota places per gender to the other regions).
The continental events will award 74 quotas in total, 31 boats for men, 31 for women, and 12 for mixed. The location and dates are to be confirmed.
2024 Last Chance Regatta
The location and date of the event is yet to be confirmed. The highest NOCs not already qualified from previous events will receive 39 quota places, according to the following distribution:- Windsurfing: 5 per gender
- Kite: 5 per gender
- Dinghy: 3 per gender, 4 for mixed
- Skiff: 3 per gender
- Mixed Multihull: 3
Emerging Nations
Members of the World Sailing Emerging Nations Program who have not already qualified will qualify based on their results at the 2024 Last Change Regatta: one per gender in Windsurfing and one per gender in Dinghy.Universality
Four quotas are reserved for Universality places, two in men’s Dinghy and two in women’s Dinghy. They will be distributed by the Tripartite Commission after the Last Chance Regatta.Got it?
MattFranzek
Member
We have a growing ILCA/Laser fleet in Buffalo, NY, and as much as I don’t want to, it is. So I’ve been shopping for boats. A 20 year old used boat is $4-5k (prove me wrong cause I need a boat) and needs $1-2k in upgrades/sails. A base new ILCA with no covers, non-race (OG) control lines, no carbon bits, is ~$8500k IF you go to the dealer to pick to up. If you want a race spec boat, the same boat supplied at the Olympics and events with supplied boats, you are looking at $10-11k depending on the builder. Again, that does NOT include a dolly, trailer, covers, and often a race sail (usually you get a “practice” sail, still not sure what that means).
The strength of the Laser isn’t the 250,000 boats that have been produced. That’s the anchor of the class. It’s why it’s still a thing and it should have been relegated to an awesome 1 person trainer boat for something that’s better. Maybe there won’t be 250,000 Moths/Wasps in 50 years, but 3000 Moths have been added to the fleet since they started foiling consistently in 2008/9, and AMac is selling 500-800 Waszp a year in only their 4/5th year.
If you think I’m wrong, go hang out in a boat park when the Moth or Waszp fleet is rigging up to go out. Every single Laser and Opti kid wishes they were in a Moth/Waszp. Most of the people with Waszps wish they were in a Moth. Lasers are great regional training boats, that’s it.
Also, anyone who has the dream that an Olympic campaign for anyone is affordable needs to talk to someone doing a campaign. It’s $250k plus to try to make the Olympics. No one from a “developing nation” doesn’t already have huge money backing them to get to the Olympics, so the cost of a $36-40k Moth to actually drive viewers and clicks is a drop in the hat to kids doing campaigns. I have a cousin who did an olympic campaign out of a developing country, the kid comes from money. Pro sports isn’t a poor man’s game, and the Olympic is professional sports.
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AnIdiot
Sock
I'm not disputing much of what you're saying except your conclusion.
It's about the sailor, not the boat. The boat should be easy to sail badly and difficult to sail well.
It's about the sailor, not the boat. The boat should be easy to sail badly and difficult to sail well.
But the reality, as proven by the numbers, shows something very, very different. Lots of kids DO look at Lasers and say they look cool; the ones at all of the club's I've recently sailed at certainly do and so do the thousands who sail them around the world.
Why on earth do assume I'm not asking the kids? The club I run, while still very small, has grown about 350% over the last three years and it's not because I'm not listening to the kids. Your apparent assumption that other people aren't listening to kids is completely untrue, and there's no reason in the world for you to think it.
It's just not correct to say that the Laser is more popular than the Waszp because it got a 40 year headstart as a class. The Laser vastly outsold the Waszp (which is a good boat) when the Laser had no class. When the Laser was as old as the Waszp is today, the Laser was selling at about 15,000 boats per year and it's still selling about 3000 according to senior class officials (the legal dispute has stuffed the official class reports). The Waszp is selling about 270.
For another comparison, look at the Aero - similar age to the Waszp but selling twice as many boats per year. The Waszp guys are doing a great job and it's great to see the class doing so well but the numbers tell the story - far more people prefer seahuggers, even after 20 years of much-hyped foiling.
The fact that people at your club love the one kid who has a windfoiler says nothing about true popularity. Lots of sailors have loved watching International Canoes and 18 Foot Skiffs, but neither has become anything more than a niche class. We have foilers at my club (including me, one guy who finished 4th in the world in a major foiling class between two AC/Sail GP skippers but has since given up foiling and gone back to seahugging, and a Sail GP coach) but none of us race the foilers and no-one seems to be interested in joining us on foils because of the cost, difficulty and poor performance in light winds.
I'm not at all sure that "an Olympic class should exist to get people sailing", and even if they do it's not as simple as foilers being better because some people think they are more interesting to watch. The two major surveys of our sport show that the general public don't think it's boring, they think it's too hard and innaccessible. Showing off the less accessible side of the sport can only increase that negative perception.
Yes, a few ex-Laser stars are getting into Moths. The previous generation of ex-Laser sailors got into Stars and Finns. That proves that what ex-Laser starts get into is pretty much irrelevant, unless you are going to claim that in 2005 Stars and Finns were the future of the sport. Similarly, the fact that a new Waszp is surprisingly cheap isn't all that relevant to the vast majority of sailors because they don't buy new boats.
Your implication that the Laser is too old to make people want to train for the Olympics is utterly blown apart by reality. Look at the number of boats in World Sailing's Olympic class ranking list;
Nacra 17 foiler - a truly weirdly small 25 (!) but there's only a dozen or so sold each year so it's certainly a huge failure as far are participation goes.
Kitefoiler women - 100
49er FX - 150
IQ Foil women - 150
470 mixed - 175
49er - 200
Kitefoiler (Men) - 250
IQ Foil men - 350
Radial/6 - 400
Laser /7 - 675
The number of entrants in the Youth Worlds show a similar pattern - the Laser is overwhelmingly the class that top young sailors CHOOSE to train on and race in, and it's the same with club level sailors.
It's also interesting that the foilers attract a far smaller percentage of women than the seahuggers.
Anna Tunnicliffe just joined the conversation.
Bill5
Right now
Who is this responding to?
onepointfivethumbs
Anarchist
There are sophomores in high school who have lived their entire lives without an American gold medal in sailing
MattFranzek
Member
For all your research, you should make some calls about how many Waszp are being sold each year. You are off by at least a factor of 3.
Yes Lasers out sold anything these days in their first 5 years because they were literally the only game in town. They, from my understanding, thee first major fiberglass production one design dinghy. People have options these days.
Laser Youth worlds have huge numbers because adults won’t take the time to listen to the kids and realize kids don’t want to sail them. Parents, coaches, program directors all funnel kids into Lasers because they won’t listen. Congrats your program grew 350%, next time someone shows up with a Waszp or Moth, stand back and watch the kids. See how long it takes the rig said boat, now notice how much of that time is spent talking to people who want to learn about the boat. On a random week day morning I can be sailing in 15 min from when I pull into the boat park, on a weekend it’s over an hour.
Look at the number of Waszps at their global championships compared to the number built. In 2019 before the pandemic they had 30% of all boats build show up. They had over 200 boats last fall for Waszp games down under.
No one likes sailing in >8kts of wind. Stop making kids and adults do it. It’s boring.
Lasers have a time and place. Olympics isn’t it. Teaching kids to sail, club fleet racing, for when we get too old to handle a moth, are all appropriate places for a Laser. Not in the Olympics where in every other sport we expect to see athletes preforming at the top of the sport, doing things that us mortals can’t understand. Laser sailing has been passed by. You want clicks and views, you want to see athletes preforming at the absolute top of the sport, no more Laser.
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Bored Stiff
Member
@MattFranzek I admire your conviction, but you are incredibly naive.
dogwatch
Super Anarchist
In what way?
1- If I'm off by a factor of three in Waszp numbers, then Waszp themselves are also wrong. The Waszp site refers to the last Games and says that "3 years in the making, a lot has changed since the last International Games were held in Perth 2019. More than eight hundred new boats have been sold in that time". https://waszp.com/news/international-waszp-games-preview/
800 new boats divided by three years equals 270 boats a year. If I was off by a factor of three, as you claim, why the hell didn't Waszp themselves say they were making 800 boats a year?
Are you saying that Waszp don't know how many boats they are making, or that they are under-claiming by 300%? I haven't seen AMAC or Marc (if he's still with Waszp) for years but I don't think they are liars.
2- Re "Look at the number of Waszps at their global championships compared to the number built. In 2019 before the pandemic they had 30% of all boats build show up. They had over 200 boats last fall for Waszp games down under."
Huh? Where the hell did you get that? The Waszp Games "down under" were in 2019 and there were 59 entrants, not over 200. http://www.sportspage.com.au/yacht_clubs/rfbyc/WASZPgames/WASZP_2019_Games_Overall.htm
If 59 boats is "30% of all boats built" then in 2019 there were only 180 Waszps in the world, so why were they claiming 700 boats in 2018? https://www.sailweb.co.uk/2018/12/18/waszp-gets-foil-upgrade/
The most recent Games, in the heart of sailing at Garda, got 159 boats, not 200; https://racehub.waszp.com/storage/event_results/1658472999.pdf. 159 boats is not "30% of all boats built" unless Waszp are lying.
Both fleets are great, of course - but your claims are utterly wrong and even a laudable 159 boat fleet is nothing comparable to the fleets a significant sport needs to achieve.
The main point is that either you or Waszp are BSing about the numbers, and I don't think it's the latter.
3- Sorry, but you are completely and utterly incorrect of the early days of the Laser. It is completely and utterly off the planet wrong to claim that the Laser class was "the only game in town" in its early years.
At the Laser's first regatta, for instance, it came up against the Hobie; the Windsurfer; and one-design singlehanders backed by Chrysler (third biggest carmaker in the USA); AMF (owner of Harley Davidson, etc) and MFG (a nuclear missile maker among other things. The Laser also had opposition from Yamaha (creators of the very similar Seahopper); the French sailing federation who did their own Laser copy; and even the Russians. There was also the Force 10, the Topper and the UK Minisail, and many other boats.
The Laser came out at a time when vast corporations were diversifying into the booming sailbaoat market and throwing big sums at Laser competitors. Your claim is complete BS.
4- My last three clubs have had people arrive and rig up foilers (Moths, Waszps, A Class etc) so please don't imply that they haven't. My current club, as I clearly said, has people who are world class foilers. Yes, the kids (and everyone) check out their gear - but no, they don't then go out and buy foilers.
So you get people asking about your foiler - cool, so do I. But how many people are actually buying them?
It's illogical to imply that clubs like mine (and my previous ones) are not aware of foilers when many of them have members who foil, sometimes to world level. The foilers still remain a tiny minority. In fact, the foiling Olympic medallist's coach at my club has stopped using his foiler at the club and got a boat like a Laser.
5- Re "No one likes sailing in >8kts of wind. Stop making kids and adults do it. It’s boring."
Stop lying and stop being arrogant and telling everyone what to do. Plenty of people like sailing in light winds and for many of them, it's what they normally do. Look at the typical summer wind in many parts of the world; if people didn't sail in under 8 knots it wouldn't be worth them doing the sport.
Apart from the fact that your claim is simply dishonest, what the hell gives you the right to tell the sailors of the world what conditions they have to get bored in?
6- Wrong. Plenty of people DO listen to kids and they DO hear kids saying that they want to sail Lasers etc. How the hell can you be imply that you know what kids all around the world are saying? Have you heard the kids in my club? Have you heard the kids in my previous two clubs? No, you have not, so stop BSing and claiming that you know what they say.
7 - Wrong. Try actually looking at the other sports and you'll see that many of them have rules that restrict the gear to stuff that is very restricted in design and performance. Check out cycling or rowing. Have you ever read the Lugarno charter of the UCI and looked at the design and performance restrictions on Olympic bikes, for example?
The equipment-intensive sports that have strong grass-roots racing scenes are the ones where the Olympic legends use gear very similar to that used by the weekend warriors but get more out of it.
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IPLore
Super Anarchist
Anna Tunnicliffe left the room over a decade ago
