Please select your home edition
Edition
Ovington 2021 - ILCA 2 - LEADERBOARD
Product Feature
Ocean Safety Coastal First Aid Kit
Ocean Safety Coastal First Aid Kit

Interview with Bruce Kirby – the designer of the Laser - Part One

by Rob Kothe Sail-World.com on 11 Nov 2009
Laser Worlds 2008 - Tom Slingsby C & C Images
Canadian Bruce Kirby designed the Laser in 1969, in collaboration with industrial designer and boat builder Ian Bruce. 50 years on the numbers of Lasers built is closing on 200,000.

Now 80 years old, Ottawa born Bruce Kirby lives in Connecticut as he has for all of those 50 years, and we did this in-depth interview with him to discover the real story about the Laser – what was the design brief, was it really drawn as a 'first sketch' on a table napkin in a restaurant?

Bruce Kirby. ‘I started sailing regularly as a crew with my father when I was six years old. I sailed before that, but my brother was a little older than I was and he and I were regular crew racing with my dad when I was six and my brother was eight. It’s been a while.

'I raced the International 14s from the time I was a young teenager and that’s a development class; you can design within a measurement rule. Because I’d done this model yacht carving sort of stuff for years I thought, damn it all I’d really like to try to design myself an International 14.

'Another friend and I took a bunch of measurements off several known 14s, boats that we knew the capabilities of, to get an idea of what these things looked like on paper, because if you see something in three dimensions there’s no way to do calculations on them and so on.

'We sketched up three or four well known International 14s and he actually designed his boat before I designed mine.

'Funnily enough his and mine were quite different from each other, but that was my Mark One 14 and it did pretty well; we won regattas.

'A couple of years later one of my owners said ‘look, if you want to design a Mark Two version I’ll buy the first one.’ So I did my Mark Two three years later after the Mark One, and it took off from there.

'I was working against guys like Ian Proctor and Uffa Fox in the very early days and Englishmen started buying my boats. The legendary Stuart Morris won his last Prince of Wales in one of my boats.


'After completing my education in my home town Ottawa, I worked for the Ottawa Journal for six years and then I worked for the Montreal Star for eight years as an editor. I started there in 1956, the year I sailed a Finn in the Melbourne Olympics and again in Tokyo in 1964 (switching to the Star Class in the 1968 Mexico Olympics)

'In 1965, One Design and Offshore Yachtsman (which is now called Sailing World) in Chicago offered me a job at about twice the pay that I was getting at the Montreal Star so off we went to Chicago for four years, before we relocated to Connecticut.

'I kept designing dinghies while I worked for the magazine and it wasn’t until 1975 that I felt confident in leaving the magazine to go full time into yacht design.

'I don’t have formal naval design training. There are some damned good books and from the time I was a little kid, I used to carve models and sail them.

'I’ve got one sitting in front of me (beside the Laser sketch) that I made when I was 14 years old which is still one of my favourite hull shapes.

'We used to race them up in Ottawa, so I’ve been conscious of hydrodynamics in a very amateur way for a very long time.

'Then I got hold of a book called Skene’s Elements of Yacht Design and that’s the bible, even for professionals.

'I understood about half of it when I was using it but it teaches you all the essentials. I don’t claim to be a naval architect; I claim to be a yacht designer. It’s treated me well.

'The Laser started with a phone conversation in 1969. I was here in Connecticut and Ian Bruce called me from Montreal. He was an industrial designer before he was a boat builder and he had a contract to do a bunch of products for an Outdoor Equipment Company, and one of the things they wanted was a car topper sail boat.

'So he called me and said ‘how about doing a car top sail boat for these people?’ He’d warned me that it might never happen and they might not go ahead with it.'

In part 2 of this interview you will discover more about the car topper, then what happened at the Playboy Club and how the Weekender became the Laser.

Related Articles

Medway RC Laser Club Winter Series week 10
A blast for the end of the series A great breeze from the NW and showing just over 20 knots to run the last race in the Winter Series. This is the last race before sailing on much bigger dinghies and yachts for most of our racers.
Posted today at 8:01 pm
Topper Winter Championships at WPNSA
135 Toppers took to the eagerly anticipated wild waters and winds of Weymouth The much awaited ITCA Winter Championships finally arrived early March and over 135 Toppers took to the eagerly anticipated wild waters and winds of Weymouth. There was a great buzz around WPNSA as we got our boats ready.
Posted today at 7:34 pm
Performance Meets Comfort
Discover the attributes of Henri-Lloyd's Dynamic Dri Fast Tees Engineered for performance, the Dynamic Dri Fast T-Shirts feature HeiQ Mint anti-odour technology, mechanical stretch, and UPF 50 protection, all while offering moisture-wicking panels and a recycled fabric design for the ultimate in comfort.
Posted today at 6:00 pm
Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca by FERGUS day 3
Consistency is keynote as Sofía moves to finals phase With classes moving into the Gold fleet phase today at the 54 Trofeo Princesa Sofía Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels on Mallorca's Bay of Palma so the intensity stepped up and consistency became most important.
Posted today at 5:32 pm
Ancasta Spring Boat Show opens next week
Step aboard a variety of yachts, multihulls and performance RIBs - all in one location Join us at our Hamble office in Port Hamble, near Southampton to step aboard a variety of Motor Yachts, Sailing Yachts, Sailing Multihulls and Performance RIBs - all in one location.
Posted today at 4:00 pm
Wetwheels Cymru is formed
Unlocking boating access for disabled communities in Wales Right now, there is no dedicated Wetwheels boat in Wales — meaning thousands of disabled people are missing out on the freedom, confidence and wellbeing that these opportunities provide.
Posted today at 3:33 pm
BFSLYC Landyacht series round 1 at Brean
A good wind and weather forecast ensured a good turnout across 4 classes Brean Sand Yacht Club hosted the first 2025 round of the BFSLYC Landyacht series for class 2/3, Standart and Mini yachts.
Posted today at 11:55 am
A united bid for clean water in Northern Ireland
7 water-based National Governing Bodies have come together to tackle the problem Seven of Northern Ireland's water-based National Governing Bodies have come together to tackle the growing issue of polluted water in Northern Ireland.
Posted today at 11:00 am
International Moth Northerns at Rutland
The first event which the Switch has joined in with The first of the Moth Opens took place over the weekend of the 29th and 30th March and after the success of the Dinghy Show even a sketchy forecast could not put off the Moth or Switch sailors with this being the first event of the year.
Posted today at 10:23 am
MAC 24 Hour Challenge in Cape Town
Strong south-easter tests Milnerton sailors The Enterprise Dinghy CV6 lost its mast, a Gypsy Dinghy from Plumstead Scouts snapped their centreboard, while other boats had to do running repairs to complete this year's MAC 24 Hr Challenge held at Milnerton Aquatic Club this weekend.
Posted today at 9:37 am