Bruce Kirby 8 Bells

The famous yacht and dinghy designer and Canadian olympic sailor Bruce Kirby has died, aged 92.

Among his many designs he drew the Laser Dinghy in 1969 since 1970 more than 215,000 Lasers have been built worldwide.

Kirby began his working life as a newspaper journalist at his home town in Ottawa and then on the Montreal Star “who always drew boats on the side” before specialising in sailing journalism, editing One-Design & Offshore Yachtsman and later Yacht Racing magazine from 1970 to 1975. He was good at sailing and raced International 14s before competing in the Finn class, sailing for Canada in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. He was at the 1964 Olympics sailing a Finn and in 1968 sailing a Star class.

Having designed several versions of the ’14 he famously sketched the Laser on a piece of paper while on the phone to friend Ian Bruce who was already building Kirby’s wooden I-14 designs in Montreal, and looking for a simple glassfibre dinghy that could be raced solo and was easy to build. The idea was the new dinghy could boost the 14 business which was not making enough profit. Initially called the Weekender the 13ft 9in Laser was soon renamed after the scientific breakthough of building the first laser in 1960. The word is an acronym for “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”.

The 130lb (59kg) boat was an instant success with 144 selling at the New York Boat Show in 1971 at $595 each. As it took off the royalties were enough for Bruce to leave his job and become a full time designer in 1975.

The simplicity of rigging a Laser was key to its success, with a single 76 sqft sail (7.06 m²), that you slid over its aluminium mast like a sock, it took just a few minutes to get afloat while the Mirror and Fireball sailors were still tying knots. It also saved on winter maintenance with its glassfibre hull needing little or no care – and available in some great and novel shades from orange to racing green.

Kirby’s attitude to yacht design was that it wasn’t “brain surgery. We always pretend that it is, but it’s really not…”, he said modestly. Although untrained he had “a good eye for a boat” and began drawing boats while he was young. He read Skene’s Elements of Yacht Design and used to say: “If you can understand 50 per cent of what’s in that book, you can design a boat.”

His many designs include famous class boats like the Apollo 16 in 1977, the Sonar in 1980, the Ideal 18 keelboat, the Kirby 23, 25 and 30 and two America’s Cup 12-Metres: Canada I and II. Several cruiser-racers include the San Juan 24, and 30 and offshore yachts like the Admiral’s Cup 40ft Runaway.  He also designed a range of Norwalk Island Sharpies from 18 to 41ft built in epoxy ply – often by amateurs, based on the legendary seaworthy working boats of the American North East coast. Kirby began the designs in response to the need for a shoal draught cruiser that could cope with the shifting sands of the estuary near his Connecticut home.

In 2011, aged 82, Kirby sailed in the Sonar European Championships held in Scotland. He won two races. In 2012 he was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame.

Sadly the last ten years of Bruce Kirby’s life were dogged with legal battles as he fought to get UK-based Laser Performance Europe and Quarter Moon Inc in the USA to pay royalties for his name and design. In February this year he was awarded over $6m in damages against both both QMI and LPE liable to Kirby for misappropriation of his name. Laserperformance Europe based in Long Buckby, Northampton, was officially dissolved in June this year; its owner Full Moon Holdings Ltd (based at the same address Station Works, Station Road, Long Buckby, Northampton, Northamptonshire, NN6 7PF) remains active, and a Limited Liability Company, Laser Performance LLC, has operated from the same address since January 2018 . A new website called Laser Performance UK continues to sell Laser dinghies and equipment. The legal issues saw the Laser association change the name of the boat to its own initials: ILCA and the International Laser Class Association now has no mention of Kirby on its web page titled “About the boat”.

It was a sad end to the story of the world’s most popular sailing boat, the name of which, together with its designer should be going down in the happy history with which it is associated by most of those who sailed a Laser.

The case of Bruce Kirby, Inc. v. LaserPerformance (Eur.) Ltd. can be read:  HERE

Bruce Kirby January 2 1929 – July 18 2021