He was a senior executive of the British construction company John Laing plc. He was the first president of the Confederation of British Industry in 1965–66. He was knighted in the 1965 Queen's Birthday Honours. He enjoyed sailing in later life, regularly competing in the Fastnet race. He had many yachts including Vashti, Hephzibah, Clarion of Wight, and Loujaine. He was rear-commodore and a trustee of the Royal Yacht Squadron, president of the Royal Yachting Association, and admiral of the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Because of this love of sailing and yachting, Maurice Laing donated a sum of money to the Ocean Youth Club (later the Ocean Youth Trust) in 1990 to build a boat to help educate young people and disabled members of society in the fine art of yacht sailing. The subsequent boat was named John Laing after his father and is still taking on young people to teach, while also participating in many Tall Ship's Races, a two-year round-the-world voyage, and a 5-month British Army expedition to the Antarctic.

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More Info...This can be found in THE ISLAND SAILING CLUB HISTORY BOOK 1889 - 2014