Laser fleet sailing for Perth

by PSA Media on 19 Sep 2011 At the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships being held between Saturday third and Sunday 18th December 2011, by the far the largest fleet in combination will be the Laser Radial and Laser Standard.

The task of building the 275 brand new Lasers for the World Championships is reaching its final stage in the Performance Sailcraft (PSA) factory 3,000 kilometres away on the Central Coast north of Sydney in New South Wales. PSA has been producing Lasers since 1973

PSA CEO Chris Caldecoat explained ‘The competition boats for the Men’s and Women’s world titles are an essential part of the Laser competition, which as a supplied equipment class, requiring athletes to lease brand new, identical boats for the Championships.

‘ISAF contracted us to deliver 275 boats for Laser and Laser Radials with the possible need of more, plus we had to have boats for pre-regatta training. The first batch of 160 left our facility last week, they are going by sea and arrives first week of October. The organisers have arranged a warehouse across the road from Fremantle Sailing Club for us, which is fantastic, and the Laser dinghies will be delivered and serviced from there.

‘ The second batch of 115 Lasers leaves in three weeks time and arrives in the middle of November and there will be 275 boats there to be drawn out of a hat to be handed over to the sailors.

‘The 275 Lasers have been measured and certified already ahead of the world championships After the draw the sailors will just then wheel them across the road to Freemantle Sailing Club and away they go. The boats aren’t just a bare boat. The Lasers are complete with sail, with sail numbers, with deck covers, on a dolly with foil bags, mast bags, you name it.

'At the end of Perth 2011, there will be 100 boats available for sale, they will come with the top cover, the foil bag, the dolly, the mast bag, the standing rigging has not been used. They will have the event sail and they will also have a new sail for the same price as a new boat.

'‘It’s a great package. The boats only just really used and you get a brand new sail and all that kit. You are getting nearly $2,500 worth of kit added to the boat.

‘The residual 175 boats then get packed up and be shipped to Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron where they wait for the Master Worlds in March to be used for that event. We will top them up with new boats from the factory, so there will be up to 250 boats available for charter.

‘After that they will be available for the Radial Open and the Radial Youth Worlds at RQ again in July and in between that we have got the Australian Master Nationals leading into the Australian Master World Championships in March and then we have the Asian Pacific titles leading into Youth Week that then goes into the Radial Youths and Radial Mens Worlds.

‘At the moment we are being swamped with competitors and teams wanting a new boat or charter boats on the east coast and so we have decided to release some charter boats for the east coast events.

‘We are doing packages. There is Sail Sydney, Sail Melbourne and training in Perth before hand, before they get hold of the actual Worlds boat and we are doing packages for them.

‘Obviously we can’t do too many and we are already full for that. We are taking charter boats across so they will be a convoy of PSA trucks driving across to Perth from Sail Melbourne.

‘There are different levels of sailors that are going to the ISAF Worlds. While some of the top guys might go home for Christmas because they have been busy sailing all summer its seems in many cases the guys who are ranked two, three, four or five for each country want to sailing in the Australian Nationals back in Queensland at the end of December. Much better than going home to the cold.’

For more information on leasing and buying Lasers

Contact Jason Goulding at PSA Jason@lasersailing.com.au

Ph: 02 4389 1088



www.performancesailcraft.com.au