Lanaverre had been approached by PS to manufacture the Laser for Europe, but the franchise deal seem somewhat unfair for him
so he decided he would make a french Laser
(there was a Japanese Laser called seahopper, a russian Laser called chverbot, a spanish laser called Estel and a german Laser called vario, so why not a french one?)
There were plenty of good ideas: the boats would be built both by professional boatbuilders and amateur ones and be quite cheap ,even cheaper than the Laser that was quite cheap at he time
(Lanaverre had the french federation FFV involved and at the time there were many OK dinghies amateur buit in clubs in FFV molds), the laser defects would be corrected, the boat would be one design and cheap so all clubs would have fleets of X4 so young would be racers could travel by train bus or motorcycle to he racing spot and race chartered boats without buying a bourgeois and expensive four wheeler.
A crack team was built up (The designer of the 420, christian Maury, the thinking head of sailing in UCPA, jacques Meyran and french finn gold medallist in Kiel Serge Maury) but the result gave some truth to churchill's boast that a camel is a horse designed by a comittee.
(Only some truth because after all the successful 420 was a team's work , just as the Laser)
The side tanks were the brainchilds of serge Maury and modelled after an "ergonomic" finn hiking bench...but you have to make a mch more dynamic quality of hiking to punch a light laser/ X4 through a steep chop than you do on the heavy swedish olympic barge designed by a part time hairdresser long time ago for a finnish located olympic regatta...
The rudder (supposedly bigger meant better compared to the Laser's) was made of cheap plywood just as the centreboard....and it proved both bendy and breakable.
The vang was a lever type , with controls on both sides of the cockpit but some tweak n the design meant he vang setting would change when easing the sheet.
The cunningham had similar two (infamous an cheap, same as period laser) plastic cleats on both sides of the cockpit but as the sail (not builder supplied and thus not one design) had a very wide mast sleeve ,meant to be aerodynamic, but resulting in huge vertical creases wen you took the cunningham in.
The cockpit was single bottommed and rather large, meaning that you would carry some 80 litres of seawater in choppy conditions even with the expensive optional elvstrom bailer fitted
The 3 tubes mast was made of marshmallowesque sort of alminium alloy and the deck was belcobalsa core sandwich (better known by amateur 0K builders and cheaper than airex ) which meant the boat building up weight when stored upside down.
X4 by lanaverre and Keltic were decently built, ACMO ones just average, amateur ones were quite erratic in their weight distribution (some amateurs were very professional ones using forbidden kevlar fabrics and oher ones building their boats mason style with too much resin and too little glass)...
But the worst ones were made by Bremaud who had taken the recivership of the then ailing Gouteron boatyard : the mast sleeve was not properly glued to the bottom (the connecting bit was not a wood block saturated with GRP like the Laser but a molded piece with the gelcoat face upwards )and they forgot to scratch the molding wax and the gelkote in the cup that recieved the mast well, with he result of the mast coming down and tearig he deck in anything stronger than 15 /18 Kts (it happned to me in La Rochelle frustrating me of a good race , some 300 Metres before the fnish line in a 25 Kt heavy chop race)
I was anxious because i needed the deposit money back for the petrol in my infamous 750 Norton Commando to go back to Paris....and kept thinking of it during the ;long (1H30) and difficult tow back to the harbour, with a half sunk X4 with it's bow open like an old bum's shoe
The clubs guys told me not to worry, that they would give me another boat for twomorrows race without claiming the deposit.
I then asked what to do wih the damaged X4 dripping on the slipway and was told to put it somewhere behin this hangar...which i did only to find a pile of broken Bremaud X4 hulls.
But what do you do with those? ...Well we wait until we have ten broken X4 and Bremaud will bring a batch of 10 new ones on warranty...nedles to say Bremaud went over the edge some months after
)