Email Print<\/p>\n
Ian Bruce<\/p>\n
29 Mar 2016<\/p>\n
Ian Bruce – he and Bruce Kriby designed the Laser dinghy…<\/p>\n
LASER DESIGNER: Ian Bruce once said he stumbled into sailing, but he left an indelible mark on the sport as one of the inventors of the Laser – one of the world’s most popular sailboats.<\/p>\n
The long time Dorval resident died last Monday in Hamilton, Ont., after a battle with cancer. He was 82.<\/p>\n
“He changed the face of sailing in the world,” said Peter Bjorn, a longtime sailing partner, business partner and friend.<\/p>\n
A 63 year member of the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club who lived just off the club’s grounds, Bruce was a passionate and accomplished sailor who won many regatta titles and represented Canada twice in the Olympics, in 1960 and 1972.<\/p>\n
But he is best known for innovating a new class of small sailing dinghies, designed for the mass market but fast enough to interest the world’s top sailors.<\/p>\n
The Laser was chosen as an Olympic class in 1993 and was first sailed in the 1996 Olympics.<\/p>\n
In 1969, Bruce, an industrial designer at Alcan and co-owner of a small business manufacturing high end sailboats, came up with the idea of a single-handed dinghy that would be small and light enough to fit on a car’s roof rack.<\/p>\n
In a 2013 interview with Sail World, Bruce Kirby, a former journalist at the Montreal Star and Olympic sailor who designed the Laser, said Bruce proposed the idea over the phone in October 1969.<\/p>\n
“While we were talking on the phone, I was doing a sketch on a piece of yellow legal paper,” Kirby recalled. The sketch later became known as the “million-dollar doodle.”<\/p>\n
Also involved in the project was the late sailmaker and former Olympic sailor Hans Fogh, along with others, including Bjorn.<\/p>\n
A celebration of his life will be held May 7 from 4 to 7pm at the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club, 1350 Lakeshore Rd. in Dorval.<\/p>\n
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that people make donations to a charity of their choice or encourage someone to learn to sail. Story by Jason Madger in the Montreal Gazette<\/p>\n
via Boating Business | Ian Bruce<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Email Print Ian Bruce 29 Mar 2016 Ian Bruce – he and Bruce Kriby designed the Laser dinghy… LASER DESIGNER: Ian Bruce once said he stumbled into sailing, but he left an indelible mark on the sport as one of … Continue reading