Advice for Running Downwind When running in light to medium airs you may sometimes find the Laser goes faster with the boom let out to only about 80 degrees so that the winds flows across the sail from leech to luff. When running in heavy airs do not be afraid to sail by the lee and, you may even find letting your boom out past 90 degrees on occasions may make the Laser a bit more stable. And it may even save you a gybe. Do not be afraid to experiment with the ‘unconventional

Choosing the Right Sail When the ‘A’ (large; light weather) and the ‘B’ (middle-size) sails get near the upper end of their wind range, they develop a pronounced weather helm. This means that they drive the boat into the wind, sometimes overpowering the rudder and when sailing downwind the boat tends to ‘submarine’. For example, the ‘A’ rig has an upper range of around 8-10 knots. To windward, the answer to this problem is boat speed. It is critical to keep boat speed up so t

The sails on the RC Laser are virtually indestructible but there is one aspect that occasionally (rarely) causes a problem. A mylar reinforcing panel is glued along the leach (trailing edge) of the sail. This panel keeps the primary sail material from fraying and stretching along the trailing edge. It is applied with an adhesive and then bound by the corner reinforcements top and bottom. On rare occasions, the mylar panel has been known to separate from the sail. This can occ

We need to be able to control mast bend so that we can shape the sail for upwind sailing in different wind strengths. We do this by changing the tension in the sail (by moving the inner outhaul slider towards mast for more mast bend and vice versa). In a stayed rigged boat with a backstay, mast bend is controlled by changing the tension in the backstay. This means that the fore and aft bend in the mast remains fore and aft whatever position the sail is in. In the RC Laser we