The NZ Laser Association supports racing Laser / ILCA sailors and regattas at home and overseas. ILCA is the official name now used for Lasers. Come and join us.

Dunedin's Laser 50th Birthday Regatta

Mon 13 Sep 2021 7:28am

Dunedin celebrated the 50th Laser birthday on Saturday 11th September.

 
With Covid and a mixed forecast we were more than pleased when we got 18 boats on the water, exceeding our wildest expectations. Numbers were boosted by a few out of towner from central Otago.
 
We ran 5 short races in the upper harbour in the centre of town out of Vauxhall Yacht club. We captured the spirt of the laser with all sail sizes present, a mixture of abilities, ages from teens to Grand masters and both genders present. Sailing was in a mixtures of wind strength catching even the best out. This was followed by some food a short talk by Eric Stibbe and a birthday Cake.
 
To those in Auckland, Stay Safe, to everyone else Happy sailing.
 
Rob English

Wellington's Laser 50th Birthday

Mon 13 Sep 2021 7:28am

Seven Lasers enjoyed a typical benign Wellington weather pattern on our 50th Anniversary Celebration Sail. 

 
Departing Worser Bay soon after 12 noon, we had a mock start off the WBBC clubhouse then headed north into Scorching Bay in a light northerly breeze. The fleet then continued north around to a marker buoy in Kau Bay then a down wind slide back home.
 
Bruce J escorted us in his keeler and took some great photos which captured the occasion.
More photos taken on the downwind  from onboard my Laser.
 
A nice laidback way to celebrate the 50th anniversary and a good start to our season (official opening next weekend - Sat 18th September).
 
Michael Gray

Auckland's Laser 50th Birthday Regatta

Thu 5 Aug 2021 12:28pm

Auckland Laser sailors celebrated the Laser's 50th birthday

with a quiet walk, by oursleves :(

Why the Laser has been renamed the ILCA

Thu 22 Jul 2021 9:50am

Commercial problems with the Laser trademarks mean that the Laser classes are being renamed.
With the new logo shown above.
New Name Previous Name
ILCA 7 Laser Standard
ILCA 6 Laser Radial
ILCA 4 Laser 4.7
ILCA 7 Masters Laser Standard Masters
ILCA 6 Masters Laser Radial Masters

This year is the 50th anniversary of the Laser class. Over that time the class has become synonymous with single handed dinghy sailing worldwide, from mucking around off the beach to the absolute peak of competition, the Olympics, and pretty much everything in between. While the hull and the basic design of the boat has remained unchanged for 50 years the class has progressively introduced new rigs; the Radial and 4.7, and developed an extremely strong worldwide Masters division to widen its appeal. It now has a worldwide following of sailors from under 12 to over 80 years of age. About 220,000 Lasers have been built and it is a measure of the success of the design that most of these are still sailing.
 
In spite of all this success there have been many changes to the commercial background of the class over the years, with a litany of manufacturer changes, trademark ownership changes etc, but through all that turbulence the fundamental brilliance of the boat has seen its success continue and its status as the preeminent dinghy class in the world grow.
 
Unfortunately, one side effect of the latest commercial ruckus is that there has been what has proven to be an unresolvable dispute between the owner of the Laser trademarks in most of the world, excluding Oceania, and the international class and World Sailing. This now requires the class to change its sail logo and rig identifications as listed above. While this problem does not apply directly to New Zealand (or Australia) we have made the decision to move with the rest of the world and change to the new logo and naming conventions.

There is absolutely no need to change any existing class legal equipment but all class legal sails and equipment sold from now on and all future official class correspondence will use the new logo and conventions. You may have already seen the new ILCA logo appearing on sails and from now on will see that and the new rig naming convention on boats and at regattas around the country. Its only a name and logo change, there is no change to the boats. The new naming conventions use the new class name and approximate sail area of each rig.

 
Its still the boat we all know and love, it will just have a different symbol on the sail and a different names in the headlines. So don't worry, its still the largest adult dinghy class in the world, its still the mens and womens single handed Olympic boat and the World Youth single handed boat for both boys and girls. It will still have the most World Championships of any class with the largest number of sailors and you will still see lots of them at pretty much every regatta in New Zealand. 
 
It's just got some new names.

Nick Page

Some ILCA Worlds venues changed and 2022 dates set

Thu 22 Jul 2021 9:44am

The 2021 ILCA 6 Men’s and Women’s World Championships is being relocated to Mussanah, OMAN, hosted by the Oman Maritime Sports Committee at the Barcelo Hotel.  The event dates have been changed to 29 November to 06 December 2021.  Additional information will be posted as it is available.

 

We apologize for the late announcement, but disruptions of the global supply chain, specifically shipping, have made it logistically impossible to have the charter boats delivered to the original host venue (Houston, USA) from Asia in time for the event.  Oman has offered to host this event, although at a later date.

 

Given this change, we have extended the application deadline to 30 August 2021, after which you will be asked to approve and rank your sailors.  All existing applications for this event remain valid, although we understand that some sailors may cancel due to the date and venue change.

 

Also, the dates and locations for several 2022 World Championships have been set  These are:

- 2022 ILCA 6 Masters World Championship – 09-17 June 2022 at the Vallarta Yacht Club in Nuevo Vallarta, MEXICO

- 2022 ILCA 4 Youth World Championships – 13-20 August 2022 at the Capable Planet Clube Nautico in Vilamoura, PORTUGAL

- 2022 ILCA U21 World Championships – 21-28 August 2022 at the Capable Planet Clube Nautico in Vilamoura, PORTUGAL

 

Please share this information with the sailors in your District.

 

Best regards,

The ILCA Team

 

International Laser Class Association
Website: http://www.laserinternational.org

 

Stolen Laser gear

Tue 20 Jul 2021 8:08pm
We had our car broken into at the Copthorne Wellington.
 
If anyone sees or hears of any gear for sale could you get in touch;
  • New laser sails
  • Sets of laser foils brand new
  • Carbon tillers and extensions 
  • Laser control lines
  • Lots of sailing gear (2 full bags were stolen)
  • Lots of Zhik dingy gear
  • Oakleys and kaenons sunglasses 
  • New wet weather jackets and dry pants
  • Tic Tac compasses 
Any help to find these would be much appreciated 
 
Emily  |  emilyoverend2002@gmail.com
 

Second Hand Lasers in Demand

Tue 8 Jun 2021 7:38am
There is a severe shortage of second hand Lasers around the country, with plenty of interest from potential new sailors but suitable boats are hard to find.
 
So a few options;
 
Our dealers are happy to trade in your boat for a new one to increase the supply of 2nd hand boats, so why not upgrade your boat now. If you have been thinking about upgrading talk to Dan at Watershed (021 555 356) or Mike at NZ Sailing (mike@nzsailing.com) and get on with it. Then either sell your existing boat yourself or they can help you with selling/trading it in.
 
If you know someone who has a boat (or boats) that's not getting used for whatever reason encourage them to put it on the market. They can list in on the NZLA website, on Trade Me or through our dealers, I don't think it will be hard for them to find a buyer for sensibly priced boats.
 
If you know someone at your club who's looking for a boat encourage them to keep in touch and use your club contacts to see if anyone might have a boat they would make available.
 
Whatever way we do it it will be great to see plenty of new faces in the fleet. There are lots of boats out there that are not used regularly and getting them into the hand of someone keen to participate will help the class, the clubs and sailing in general so please have a think about it and do what you can to help build the fleet and get boats on the water.
 
Thanks
Nick

2021 Freshwater Champs - Lake Pupuke BC

Mon 3 May 2021 8:47am

Annabelle Rennie Younger - 1st Radial overall and women 2021 NSFW Laser Champs
 
Beautiful autumn weather, the usual challenging lake breezes and an excellent fleet in both the Radials and Standards resulted in a great 7 race series over the weekend. Saturday's 5 to 10 knot SW breeze was very shifty and gusty, only to be replaced with a similar strength, if slightly more predictable, NE breeze on Sunday.
 
The outstanding turnout of our womens Radial fleet was a feature of the weekend, highlighted by Annabel Rennie-Younger taking out the title by the narrowest single point margin from top Youth sailor Caleb Armit. Second womens sailor was leading youth Greta Pilkington in 4th overall while Sophia Morgan scored a couple of 3rd places  to end up 3rd woman and 7th overall. Phil Wild was the leading Masters in 3rd overall while Matthew Rist (Y) was 5th overall after what was, for him, a rather inconsistent weekend, winning 2 races on Saturday but struggling to find form in Sundays NE breeze. Second Master was Mike Pascoe, who has recently returned to the class, with a second in one race showing (otherwise well) hidden potential.
 
In the Standards it was a regatta of two halves. Luke Deegan was only able to sail Saturday and put on an awesome display, with 4 convincing wins. However tracking him all the way on Saturday and then stepping up on Sunday was Harrison Baker (O), who took out the Standard title in convincing fashion. He was followed by a group of 4 leading masters, all of whom managed to be consistently at the front of a very close and competitive masters fleet. In the end it was was expat GM Gavin Dagley, who was over from Melbourne for family reasons and took the weekend off to give the rest of us a sailing lesson, who just secured second overall. He was followed by Masters Giles Grigg and Tony Nicholson while 5th overall and second GM was Cris Brodie.
 
The usual great range of prizes finished off an awesome weekend for the last major regatta for the season. With overseas travel still severely curtailed we hope to see all the sailors back at Pupuke regularly over the winter, keeping their hands in for a full set of regattas next season.


Harrison Baker leads Tony Nicholson


Gavin Dagley and Cris Brodie


Annabelle Rennie-Younger


Greta Pilkington


Harrison Baker


Gavin Dagley


Volunteers - Dave, Garth, John, Neil and Wayne (photo kindly supplied by the NZ Police)

 

2021 Wellington ILCA / Laser Champs

Mon 29 Mar 2021 7:09pm
The Wellington ILCA / Laser Champs were run as part of the Wellington Centreboard Champs, a total of 114 boats making the most of the fantastic Worser Bay 'stadium racing' venue and typical Wellington winds. 
 
Saturday 27th
Breezy NNW 15 ~ 20 knots with 25 knot gusts.
15 Lasers (9 x Standards & 6 x Radials) lined up to start as one fleet.
For the Standards, Albert Stanley (Open) aced Day One with four bullets, followed by Matt St Armand (Master, Worser Bay) and Simon Beck (Master, Muritai).
Staying up the right way on the downwinds was a challenge for some of us at the rear of the fleet with a few powerful gusts sweeping down the course.
In the Radials, Edmund Tam (Master) lead the way, also with a clean 1-1-1-1 record.
He was chased by Holly Curtis (Women) Chris McCarthy (Master) & Steve Harris (Master).
 
Sunday 28th
Day Two, 18 ~ 20 knot NNW with gusts up in the high 20's.
Some Lasers (and the entire Paper Tiger fleet) decided that Saturdays hard slog was enough and stayed away from Sundays racing.
But with Race Officer Shayne Priddle having sent us out for an extra race on the Saturday, it was good to know that we only had to survive two races on Sundays even breezier day to get a total of six races sailed for the championship.  
For both fleets the order remained much the same, Albert continued his winning Standard ways with two more wins, followed by Matt and then Niall Pearson (Muritai).  
In the Radials, Edmund 'gained' a UFD in Race 5 but bounced back with a another win in Race 6, Chris & Holly chasing behind. 
 
Overall results from the two days were: 
Standards - Albert, Matt then Simon.
Radials - Edmund, Chris then Holly.

UK Laser Association 2021 Gybe Yearbook ILCA

Mon 29 Mar 2021 8:19am

UKLA have produced a yearbook to celebrate 50 years of the Laser Class Association. ILCA was formed in 1971 as the official international Laser class association and now, in its 50th year, renamed the boat the ILCA. The yearbook is packed with great articles: Tim Law on his incredible success as one of the worlds top amateur sailors, Olympian Mark Lyttle interviewing world renown Olympic coach Chris Gowers, Alan Davis guides us through what is Class Legal in 2021, and contributions from Wendy Fitzpatrick, Tim Hulse, Jon Emmett, Tony Woods, Max Hunt, Steve Cockerill, and many others. 

UKLA 2021 Gybe Yearbook ILCA online

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