The enduring Sunfish, created by Alexander Bryan and Cortland Heyinger back in the early 1950s, remains the most iconic sailing dinghy. But nowadays, there’s more than one fish in the big pond.
LaserPerformance (Velum Limited), which owns trademarks to the Laser and the Sunfish, was once the global Sunfish builder, but chronic supply issues forced the International Sunfish Class Association to seek an alternative source. Enter Zim Sailing, in Bristol, Rhode Island, which is now an official builder of the ISCA dinghy. To be clear: An ISCA is not a Sunfish, and only ISCAs are class legal.
But then, what of the Sunfish?
About 800 miles northwest of Zim’s shop is SERO Innovation, in Marine City, Michigan, which has been licensed by Velum to build the Sunfish (and Laser) for North and South America.
SERO CEO Chris McLellan and his company, Sunfish Direct, has been selling class-legal sails, hardware and boats. They’ve also been building a Sunfish-like craft called the SOL, which was McLellan’s approach to supplying affordable boats to sailing camps, schools and sailors unable to get their hands on new Sunfish or parts.
So, here’s where we’re at today: The ISCA is not a Sunfish, and the Sunfish is not ISCA class legal. The SOL is neither Sunfish nor ISCA. Got it?
The International Sunfish Class Association’s frustration finally came to an impasse in 2024, and that’s where the principles at Zim and its parent company, Starting Line Sailing, stepped into the picture. Zim was already in the final stages of building class-legal ILCA dinghies, as a result of the International Laser Class Association also breaking from Velum. Zim was keen enough to take on the ISCA too.
From new tooling built by their Rhode Island neighbors at Symmetrix, Zim has slightly tweaked the construction to rectify a few known shortcomings of older Sunfish, namely common leak and failure points and adhesion of foam flotation blocks inside the hull. Sprayed foam now acts to essentially lock in place the closed-cell flotation blocks and provides additional stiffness. Reinforcements in the maststep area and aluminum hardware backing plates should also help with longevity. There are also hardware upgrades, including class-legal Harken Carbo blocks on the boom and a 2-to-1 block on the traveler bridle.
With the first of its ISCAs splashed in late April, Zim now offers three different models, including two “SCA Club” versions. One has a wooden rudder and daggerboard (and retails for $5,700), and the other has glass blades and a lower-cost sail from North ($6,100). The Race model ($6,285) comes with Harken hardware, a North racing sail, and prespliced outhaul and cunningham control systems.
SERO’s first batch of vacuum-infused Sunfish were shipped from Marine City to its dealers in April. McLellan accepts that he’s now essentially blocked from the ISCA racing market, but his goal, he says, has always been to grow the sport from the bottom up anyway. “The frustration of getting Sunfish was fueling a decline,” he says, “and that’s where the SOL came from. The Sunfish is a great tool to get people sailing, and if we can make an impact there, it will ultimately help [ISCA] racing.”
