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