Since the Laser was introduced in 1972 more than 180,000 boats have been built and are sailed in every country in the world. Adding to the Laser as the established men's single-handed Olympic boat the Laser Radial has been selected as the women's single-handed class for the next Olymics in place of the Europe. A major reason for this change was the ready availability of Lasers on a world-wide basis as well as their lower cost.

Along with other major classes Lasers hold Mid-winters regattas each year, and in the case of Lasers these are held on both the East and West coasts. An unusual incident earlier this month at the Mid-winters West at the California YC in Marina Del Ray was reported on the class web site, www.laser.org and is copied below. Check on the link to see the picture of a sea urchin riding pillion on a Laser,and the read the rest of the report.An eye witness report about the baby seal that climbed aboard a Laser during the Mid-winters West Regatta at the California YC in Marina Del Ray follows;

"I was a witness to this most bizarre event. On the way out to the course a baby seal swam up to one Radial and jumped on board, he (the kids named him BoBo) jumped from one boat to another a couple of times (see the first few picutures in the series) as they sailed next to each other. He stayed put on one boat for a while through a couple of roll tacks and jibes until the mainsheet caught him off guard and he swam off to find a more acceptable ride. He then jumped up on board with the lady shown in picture 56 and sailed not one, not two but three races with her. It was the most bizzare sight ever. He actually looked like he moved to the weather side on tacks and moved forward upwind and aft downwind. At one point I swear I saw him reading the telltales...we are talking about 3 hours of sailing time......."

A comment from another informant follows;

"Kathy is one of the sailing instructors at UCLA and the Midwinters West was her first "serious" Laser regatta although not so serious that she would pass on "pick-up" crew. She did, in fact, do all three races on Sunday with the sea lion on board. The photos pretty much say it all, although Kathy mentioned after the race that he seemed to prefer the downwind legs and would even drop off to sleep and snore and that he wasn't as keen on the upwind legs where he would get wet. My thought was, "typical tactician!". Anyway, he stayed with her all the way to the UCLA dock and we called the local marine mammal rescue guy and he took him off to rehab. Based on the tag on his flipper (15 728) he'd been rescued before and would probably need to be released farther away and with a group of other sea lions".

Check out the pictures from the final day of racing at the Mid-winters west, in particular picture #56 http://calyachtclub.com/photofolio/index.cfm?function=viewall&cid=44

Given this example perhaps we can hope to see more young and lighter weight sailors on Lasers, starting with either a 4.7 or a radial rig. Given the popularity of the radial rig many sailors stop at this size sail rather than move to a full rig. And interestingly, the over-65 sailors racing in the Great Grand Master class in World championships, are required to sail radials to reduce the physical demands on their aging bodies.