Vanguard Sailboats, the Portsmouth, R.I.-based builders of the Laser, 420, Optimist and a other small fun boats, is no more. It has merged with its British-based equivalent, Performance Sailcraft Europe, to become the world’s biggest producer of small sailboats.

The new company is called LaserPerformance, and in addition to manufacturing plants in the USA and UK, it has offices in the Middle East, Australia, and Hong Kong which give it a truly global reach.

President of the new company is David Graham and Chip Wilkerson is VP of Marketing.