Photo credit: Lachie Gilmour
There are different sails and rigs for the ILCA (Laser) hull. ILCA 7, 6 and 4. I sail ILCA 4 or what used to be known as Laser 4.7. The differences are:
- ILCA 4 (Laser 4.7) is the junior rig and it is used both male and female sailors and it’s about 4.7 square metres in size.
- ILCA 6 (Laser Radial) is around 6 square metres and is used by women at the top level their Olympic class so that is the top rig for women and a youth class for men.
- ILCA 7(Laser Standard) is the men’s Olympic class and is around 7 square metres
All these different size rigs (sails) fit onto the same ILCA hull. So the only thing that changes is the bottom section or the bottom half of your mast. The top half and all the rigging is the same just the sail is different.
At the moment I am just a bit under the ideal weight for ILCA 4 which means I’m spending most of my time using this sail especially when it is windy. But when the wind drops, because I’m quite tall for my weight, I can handle the ILCA 6 (Radial) rig. This gives me the opportunity to learn how to sail with the ILCA 6 sail. Then when I do become heavy enough and can move on to this men’s youth class, I’m already familiar with how it works. Also because I train with a lot of sailors that are already in the ILCA 6 full time I can race against them sometimes on a bit more of an even playing field.
These two sails feel different. Obviously the ILCA 6 is a bigger sail and so there is more power. I need to hike harder in less wind because I’m quite light to compensate for the amount of power going through the boat. I have 3 main controls for the sail; the vang, cunningham and outhaul. The way that each sail responds to these controls is very different. The sails are cut differently and the mast is a lot stiffer for the ILCA 6 so I need to adjust things differently; pull on some things more than others for each different sail.
Charles Allen Toyn 