2000

As discussed here before the Laser sailing world has been in a bit of disarray recently with a complex lingering dispute between the builders in North America and Europe, LaserPerformance, and the designer Bruce Kirby about rights and royalties and contracts and all that messy legal stuff.

There have also been persistent stories of shortages of parts for the Laser.

On the forums there have been some suggestions along the lines of "Why doesn't the class association just find some other builder and all our problems will be over?" Unfortunately it doesn't appear that the problems can be solved quite so easily.

LaserPerformance makes a whole range of other sailing dinghies. One of these (at least until recently) was a two man performance dinghy called the Laser 2000. I sailed one when I was trying to learn to sail asymmetric spinnaker boats at Minorca Sailing in 2006.

But according to an article on the Yachts and Yachting website, LDC Sailing is the new 2000 Class builder.

LDC Sailing is delighted to announce our appointment by Phil Morrison, the designer and copyright holder of the successful 2000 dinghy, as the new license holder for the production and distribution of the 2000 dinghy. The 2000 has carved itself a strong position as both a club and circuit racing boat in the UK as well as a popular institution choice in a number of countries for training and racing. This success is in no small way due to the enthusiasm of the 2000 Class Association and their active committee.

Hmmm.

LDC Sailing is also the builder of the popular series of RS boats such as the RS100, RS200, RS400 etc. I wrote about the RS100 back in 2009 as a potential Laser Killer.

The former Laser Class 2000 Class Association website has been rebranded as the UK 2000 Class (although currently still at http://www.laser2000.org.uk/) And, at least for now, Laser Performance are listing the Laser 2000 as one of the boats they offer on their European and North American websites.

Don't hold your breath for any similar announcement about the Laser.

But you never know. We live in interesting times.