World's most popular boat revisited and big news from Volvo Ocean Race

by Rob Kothe, YachtsandYachting.com & Sail-World.com on 1 Apr 2016 Writing this from Palma, Mallorca, at the 47th Princesa Sofia Regatta, there are 1000 sailors here, competing in what will be the largest Olympic Class regatta of 2016.

The largest number of boats, as in all Olympic class events is the single handed dinghy, the Laser Standard fleet has 152 boats and in the Laser Radial 84 boats, amazing considering this being an Olympic year, with some nations prioritising time on the water in Rio ahead of the August Olympic Games.

And in the Laser world, another link with the past, when last week the original Laser boat builder Ian Bruce died. He was one of the three Canadian born sailors involved in the genesis of the world’s most successful sailing boat, the Laser, with now, well over 200,000 boats having been built.

The Laser designer Bruce Kirby, now 87 years old who was not just a talented designer but was also a talented sailing journalist called us from Connecticut this week to talk about part and present with the Laser.

He penned a historical piece for us, Kirby starts ‘The long story of the wee yacht that became the Laser began when a marketing offshoot of Canada’s Hudson Bay Company asked Ian Bruce, a Montreal product developer at the time, to come up with proposals for a line of outdoor sporting equipment.

‘Among the proposals listed as a “maybe” was a car topper sailboat. As Ian had been building and racing my Mark III International 14 and was familiar with my earlier 14s, he called from Montreal and asked me to come up with the design of a car topper.

‘This was early October of 1969 and I was still editor of the old One-Design and Offshore Yachtsman magazine (now called Sailing World) and our office had just been moved from Chicago to Stamford, Ct.

‘Ian had been told by his client that the sailboat might never become part of the package, but as we talked on the phone I was doodling ideas on a yellow legal pad. The tear sheet from this pad later became what we called the “million-dollar doodle.” Off the phone I did some quick calculations for the little boat. I believe this sketch was the reason why so many people to this day say the boat was designed on the back of an envelope or on a restaurant napkin.’

You can read the full article in the stories below…

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Mark Turner, one of the most respected figures in professional sailing, has been appointed Volvo Ocean Race CEO, as we predicted a month ago. We profiled Turner at that time and have rerun that article again today.

Turner is stepping down after 23 years at the helm of global sports marketing company OC Sport. The Briton, who competed in offshore sailing’s leading international event as a Whitbread Round-the-World sailor in 1989, and masterminded the Dongfeng Race Team project in the 2014-15 edition, will take up his new position in succession to Knut Frostad from June 7 this year.

Turner, 48, said: “There probably isn’t any other post in sailing that could have attracted me today after taking OC Sport through so many different areas of the sport over the last two decades.

“It is a significant responsibility for me to take over the leadership from Knut, who has done such an excellent job of transforming the race in to the sport’s biggest and most commercially viable top-level event.

Mark Jardine and I were in Alicante to talk to the Volvo Ocean Race team in February and we will be back there in June to talk to Mark Turner, as soon as possible.