The amazing success story of the Laser, a thirteen-foot sailboat built by Ian Bruce of Pointe Claire, Québec, and of Performance Sailcraft, the company he formed to produce …
Yeah, this was posted by the class a few days ago. I thought of providing a direct link, so here it is: The Boat that Ian Built
Watched it last night and damn it's interesting! Some notes:
the narrator says, "it's 1974". Well, the footage is actually from '73 as no one has 5-digit numbers yet.
the unnamed Lake Ontario island is (as Andy Roy points out on the ILCA site) Association Island in New York state, which was a major regatta centre in the 70s. I'd be interested to know why that didn't last.
the regatta with "hundreds of yachtsmen" was most likely the 1973 US nationals.
practically no one had a trolley back then!
once upon a time, race courses included a gybe mark... where a lot of interesting things happened
just the 40-second part from the "America's Teacup" would make this worth watching! Looks like the boom was higher on the prototype than the production boats.
there once were multiple trucks used solely to transport new Lasers, with graphics to match
the PS workforce was visibly multiethnic and audibly French-speaking... nice to hear Ian address the crowd in that language
the long Japanese section at the end was unexpected. The start of PSJ appeared much more organized than I have been told. The weather looked pretty cold for those latitudes, so it was likely shot in the winter of 73/74.
A big thank you to Andy for bringing this for all of us to see! It's a true "culture deed" as we'd say over here
I agree with Lali that the boom in the Teacup section looks higher, must be about 200mm/8". This would make a great deal of difference now that I'm not as flexible as I used to be. It's been ticking over in my mind to make a mast extension to do this.
Also the videos show very loose travellers. I suspect that if this is done then the mainsheet won't wrap around the corners. I'm going to try it soon
The advantages of a tight traveller hadn't been discovered yet Also, the high-stretch (by today's standards) cordage and plastic Clamcleats were a factor. Tiller protection wasn't explicitly allowed yet, either.
The corner-catching is essentially a function of the distance that the sheet crosses over the water. Simply letting the traveller loose won't change that very much.