Attention! Your ePaper is waiting for publication!
By publishing your document, the content will be optimally indexed by Google via AI and sorted into the right category for over 500 million ePaper readers on YUMPU.
This will ensure high visibility and many readers!
Thom on his Laser Sexy Lexy Thom with Oz Goose designer Michael Storer Thom on a rented Oz Goose on Taal Lake the Laser features - aware of doing an apples to pears exercise; not fair to both designs but interesting enough for dinghy lovers. The Goose doesn’t sail attractively very close-hauled and can’t be tuned during a race, but once you got it going in good wind the close-hauled experience becomes thrilling - sitting much further back than in a Laser and playing with the ’heeling power’ of making the hard chine as part of the anti-drift effect the boat goes fairly well upwind. (Broad) Reaching the speed encountered is not much less of a Laser and the experience of speeding over the water, easy planing, is similar, if not better: one flies a basic honest design over the waves as good as an Olympic class! Running in firm winds it is stable and without the chance encounters with fatal capsizes the Laser guarantees. Forced to make a race comparison between Laser and Oz Goose - an unfair request but ’torn between now two lovers’ I will still try: The Laser is unforgiving when ignoring its many technical sensitivities (especially running, hard wind, tacking, jibing) but the Oz Goose will not let one get away with strategic 82 So, I am a formal Goose convert now and will use my old Laser for fun on Lake Taal while taking the ’Goose challenge’ for the near future in racing. incompetence - eagerness to tack a lot near the mark resulting in losing boat speed, close hauled - going too high too early, impatience with velocity while on the port tack with the yard leaning on the mast, sitting too far forward... funny enough when you obey simple Oz Goose rules the boat will perform great. She needs a bit of time to get going but then when she goes... she goes! So, I am a formal Goose convert now and will use my old Laser for fun on Lake Taal while taking the ’Goose challenge’ for the near future in racing, with the ever expanding fleet. Goose strategy is finer and more comprehensive than Laser racing as it requires far more longer term tactics than the often on-the-spot Laser approach - start is less critical, but clear wind and lengthy good moving tacks are of the essence. It is a better mind game hence! A local Goose sailor with help from the designer of the boat are now building a new boat for me and I can’t wait for the full 2020 season. Philippines will show, also for this reason, to be more exciting than Singabore. Go Goose go!