The Byte had its genesis in a comment made at an Annual General Meeting of the USYRU, (now USSA), when a delegate wistfully wondered why the world could not have an inexpensive Europe dinghy.Ian Bruce, the father of the Laser®, a builder of ten different ISAF International Classes and himself a two-time Olympic sailor, was at that meeting. Musing to himself that there was no such thing as an inexpensive "measured" one-design Olympic class, he thought about the huge numbers of Lasers that made up the grass roots base feeding the Finn and thought why not a broad base "manufacturer's" one-design class to feed the Europe and perhaps ensure the longevity of that class, akin to the Finn. However, when he considered the weight range for such a boat, it immediately brought to mind the thousands of kids coming out of the Optimist programs with very few options for their follow-on boat, and a concept was born. The boat would not be designed for gender or age but rather for weight. A target range of 45 to 65 kilos was chosen. (100 to 145 lbs.).

The targeted Performance

With this concept firmly established, it was decided to pitch the performance of the boat squarely at a young sailor who was well past the learning stage and now looking for excitement and a real sailing challenge. The Byte has more than met those expectations; it is a very high performance boat, very fast and very challenging. Because of the background of the Designer, and because it looks like a Laser, the two boats are inevitably compared but any comparisons are meaningless because they are designed for a completely different market. The Byte is only 12 ft in length, has a hull weight of 100 lbs., is fitted with a centerlead mainsheet traveler for ease of depowering and all controls for outhaul, cunningham and vang are lead to either side deck with adequate purchase (the vang is 12:1 through a cascading, ball-bearing block system). All this is done to make the boat and its rigging easier to handle, adjust and sail by a lighter weight group of sailors.

The targeted Community

Using the 50 percentile curves of mass versus age of Western populations (50 percentile meaning one half of the selected group is above and one half is below), the weight range of the Byte covers about 85% of females from age 15 through life, 80% of the young males as they come out of the Optimist at 15 (with 50% still being Byte sized at age 18), and about 35% of adult males. If the Asian populations are included, the adult male figures increase to approximately 75%.

For those who are interested in the International aspects of Class sailing, a fascinating report from a member of the ISAF (now IOC president) medical commission, Dr. Jacques Rogge, (available from the Byte Class on request), arrived at the following conclusion: "The actual priority, when considering the weight distribution factor (of the world), is to select a boat for 50-60 kg men and 40-55 kg women".

He further concludes that such a boat (1,2 or 3 person) would increase world, male, participation by 50% and female by 75%. The Byte may, or may not, be that boat but it is certainly the community which we are now serving.

What's happening in real practice

The first significant event in the life of the Byte was the establishment, by the Designer, of a second builder in the UK to foster the aspect of International competition.

The second was the recognition by the Canadian Yachting Association that the boat had the potential to capture the graduates coming out of the Optimist and recognized the boat, provisionally, as a Youth Trainer giving it a start in the National Youth (18 and under) Championships, although not scoring it towards the overall Provincial trophy. Perhaps of even more importance was their recognition that the boat was attracting as many females as males and the event was made an Open division in the Championship. In the first year it attracted 25 competitors with a male winning, followed by a female. As a result of the success of this event, the CYA made the Class a fully recognized part of Canada's youth training program and included an open event as an official part of the Youth Championship. In its second year it drew 30 boats and this time was won by a female with a male second. Then, in 1996, the third year of this open event, there were 48 boats competing, this time won by a male with a female second! The Byte had demonstrated that it was not gender sensitive. At the time of writing, it is believed that Canada is the only country to encourage and run an open, single-handed, event at a National Youth Championship level and the Class encourages other countries to try this format as it is enormously successful.

Because of the popularity of the boat and the high calibre of female sailor which the Class is producing, the CYA used the 1998 Open Byte event at the 1998 Canadian National Youth Championships to pick the female entry to the ISAF World Youth event last summer in Finland. At the Youth's in 1998, the Byte, for the first time, was the largest Class participating with a total of 66 competitors. Again it should be stressed that this is an, under 19, open, male/female event.

However, a group of kids 14 to 18 do not, necessarily, make a Class and the Byte is slowly building a wider community that includes a more stable platform of adult sailors. Nowhere is this more true than in the UK where a Class of over 450 sailors are mostly represented by professionals (business not sailing!) in their 30's. The Class is now working to cross pollinate the two communities to increase the adult component in North America and the Youth component in Europe and at least four UK sailors have attended each of the last four North American Championships.

The end result

At the North American Championships sailed as part of 1998 CORK Week in Kingston, Ontario, 103 competitors assembled for a 12 race series and, prior to the series, a Festival and Training Seminar for the Youth competitors.

The Byte gains ISAF Recognized Status

With the Class active on two continents, The Byte Class International Association made application to the, ISAF in November 1995 to become a Recognized Class under the new guidelines. This new category of Class was established for those Classes that were offering competition at an International level but which had not yet achieved sufficient spread to apply for full International Status.

The guidelines (reworded in 1996 to read "requirements") for Recognized Status, required that the Class have confirmation from three Member National Authorities (see Note 1), on two continents, and that the Class have at least 20 boats "actively racing", which it did - UK, Canada and USA. They also required that the Class have a set of rules which are "adequate to properly control the class boats and equipment" and, here again, the Class was able to comply as it had used the rules of an existing International Class, the Laser, as a model. A working party from the Centreboard Boat Committee was set up to review the rules and, after several excellent suggestions for simplification were accepted by the Class, the Byte become the ISAF's first Recognized centreboard Class at the mid-year meetings in April 1996.

At these same November 1996 meetings, the Byte Class presented a request to have the boat examined for its potential as a Youth boat at such time that the Class was successful in making application for International Status. The minute reads as follows:

In 1998, the ISAF rules for selection as a Youth boat were changed to include Recognized Classes and the Byte officially became available for use as a World Youth boat. In fact, the Class offered the boat for use as the Women's singlehander in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. The event in the year 2002 will be held in Canada in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia.

In November of 1999, the organizers of the Sydney 2000 ISAF Volvo World Youth Championships selected the Byte as the female singlehander.

On a final note, the Class now has a seat on the International Classes Committee allowing for a voice in all ISAF decisions pertaining to International and Recognized Classes.

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