dyzzypyxxy
Member
To class members it's a potentially fatal blow to the boat and the class that we love. Which group's opinion is worth more?
Where's the "fatal blow"? Are all the boats going to disappear? Are all the people who love to sail them going somewhere? Will all current Laser regattas be cancelled if the name is changed? Of course not. If BK wins the class will go on with little change except the name of the boat. If he loses, that's when it's going to get dicey. Builders in North America and Europe not supplying quality boats or necessary parts is a much greater threat to the world of Laser/Torch sailors than a name change.
As to whose opinion counts, well here's one person who sailed Lasers for 15 years, and served as District Secretary and North America rep on the World Council for 7 years. Back then the NA Class had over 3000 members - ask Gouvernail! I've been too old, decrepit and fat to sail a Laser for a while now so why would I belong to the Class? But I still organize and run regattas, and care that the best one-design class in the world go on having big, fun regattas and producing the best sailors in the world. I still have a relevant opinion, I think. So do thousands of others who own the boats.
Let's look at how many people own and sail Lasers vs. how many join the Class - and how many of those actually vote. Over 200,000 Lasers have been sold worldwide since the introduction of the boat. Let's guess (no way to tell for sure) at how many are still around, maybe 100,000? At its height, ILCA might have had 10,000 members worldwide. So only 10% of people who buy/sail a Laser actually joined the Class (and that was counting the memberships that used to be included in the purchase of a new boat). Of those, only 10% bother to vote on rule changes that affect the boat. Often less than that. The ILCA management "managed" to hoodwink a majority of that 10% into voting for the infamous Fundamental Rule change back in 2011 by supplying bad information that led people to believe BK had a design patent on the Laser design that had expired. There never was any such thing. Those people who voted were presumably concerned about the supply of boats and parts, and I hope they still are.