Optimist, Open Skiff, Youth & Olympic Sailing Blog

A Mix of Lasers and ILCA Dinghies at the Laser 4.7 Worlds in Kingston "There's no such thing as bad publicity." -- Phineas T. Barnum The Laser is usually referred to as a single manufacturer one design boat (SMOD). But in reality, there are 3 builders (assuming LaserPerformance will be reinstated) and possibly more to come. The ILCA Dinghies are actual PSA Lasers, rebranded to circumvent the Laser trademarks. Boats from the third, Japanese, builder are much less common, except in Japan and South Korea. So, are the PSA and LaserPerformance boats the same? As indicated earlier, only one supplier of charter boats - PSA - was promoted by the Laser class at the Youth Worlds, so that many sailors did not sail by choice on the Aussie ILCA Dinghies. The fact that many of the top competitors used ILCA Dinghies for those championships is not necessarily an indicator that these are better boats. Most of the top international competitors were sailing the ILCA Dinghies

Yes, like the Lasers, the ILCA Dinghies are Car-Toppable! This is a two part article. In part one, we look at what happened, and at what did not happen, at the Laser Youth Worlds that took place in Kingston, where both ILCA Dinghy and Laser equipment was used.  In the second part -- " Are the Lasers and the ILCA Dinghies the Same Boats? Which One is Fastest? " - we look at the issue of consistency of the equipment. We refer to the findings of World Sailing's Equipment Committee, and warn about a possible upcoming arms race to secure the fastest equipment. The Aussie ILCA Dinghies made a big impression in Kingston, Ontario, as they won 3 out of the 4 youth world titles in contention: 2 Laser 4.7 world titles, and one Laser Radial world title. European sailors dominated the events. In the 4.7, both the podiums for boys and girls were exclusively composed by European sailors. In the Radial, it was all European too, except for two Australian sailors. As far as the r

We have already analyzed with some detail in a previous post how the vote organized by the Laser class to allow new builders and boats bearing no name or other names such as « ILCA Dinghy » was clearly questionable. The Laser class was in straight conflict of interest on this matter and did not organize a fair vote. The support they chose - the Survey Monkey app - is also clearly questionable. The Laser class submitted the provisional results of the vote to World Sailing, to get a formal approval of the rule change. Several countries, such as Italy, have not yet returned their ballots. The provisional results give 81% for the Yes, way more than the required two third majority. We were provided some pictures from the promotion that was done in July in Kingston by the Laser class in favor of the yes. The image in caption is a good example of the confusion. The message by the Laser class was: « Vote "Yes" here to make sure Laser stays Olympic in 2024 and 2028. »

LaserPerformance Lasers at the Front - PSA ILCA Dinghies at the Back in Kingston, ON, for the Laser Radial and 4.7 World Championships Kingston, Ontario, is a nice and busy place these days when it comes to youth sailing. But soon, the « freshwater sailing capital of the world »  may become busy with lawyers, bailiffs and legal actions. The World Championships in the Laser Radial sailboat finished on July 30 and the Laser 4.7 Worlds are due to start next Friday on August 16. There are two main suppliers of charter boats: LaserPerformance and Performance Sailcraft Australia (PSA). And the word is that most of, if not all, the Aussie boats have been sold, or at least that down payments were made for them. Some 40 boats were apparently sold on the very first day.  That's more boats than many dealerships sell in one year. The Australian boats are said to sell at CAN$7,700, which is nearly CAN$1,000 less than what LaserPerformance charges for ex-charter boats, and about

Now a week after World Sailing’s August 1st deadline and the end of the vote organized by the Laser class, where are we at? The results of the Laser class controversial Survey Monkey vote have not yet been published. In fact, counting is still under way as, as we reported, there is no centralized membership database and the Monkey Survey app used by the Laser class allowed anyone to vote, among other potential irregularities. While the counting is still still under way, and the validity of the votes has therefore not been verified by ILCA - there is no independent party involved to oversee the process -, the Laser class announced on August 3 that there were over 3,000 votes from 85 countries. But the day before, Sailing Illustrated had already announced that « over 3,300 votes were received from 85 countries on six continents » and that the Yes had most likely won. « Based on all your Ed. is hearing, from a number of sources close to the Class, one can only assume the "

ILCA Dinghy with World Sailing Plaque - in Kingston, Canada There is a persistent rumor on social media that the ILCA Dinghy is dead. 
 The ILCA Dinghy was strongly present at the World Sailing meeting last May, as the MNAs overruled the vote of the equipment committee in favor of the RS Aero, and they endorsed instead, with a strong majority, the Laser AND the ILCA Dinghy - whatever name one chooses - as single-handed dinghy for the 2024 Olympics, as long as the Laser class was going to put its house in order and get the various builders sign anti-trust FRAND and other documents. 
 ILCA dinghies also made a remarkable appearance in Kingston, Ontario, as charters for the ILCA Youth Worlds (see picture). The ILCA stickers were soon removed from the boats, once pictures appeared on Instagram. The importation in Canada of these ILCAs / Lasers by Performance Sailcraft Australia and the international Laser class ILCA was heavily criticized by the head of LaserPerformance, who mentio

The Aero 6: the New Rig Recommended for Women by RS Sailing The continuation of the Laser saga is now putting World Sailing in a very difficult situation. Yes, there was an August 1 deadline for the international Laser class ILCA to get FRAND and other agreements to be signed by its builders and  to get its house in order. It seems that the deadline was missed. ILCA has been betting on a highly contentious change to its internal class rules, and we don’t know yet the result of the vote by the membership. But as discussed in this blog, even if ILCA announces that the Yes won the rule change, there are substantial hurdles still to overcome. This includes whether World Sailing will approve the proposed generic or renamed boats, whether a Yes to the class rule vote, held via the inappropriate Survey Monkey app, will resist legally, and whether LaserPerformance will mount legal challenges against ILCA, dealers and other parties, which may completely paralyze the supply of hulls,