Optimist dinghy: Information from Answers.com

Current Specifications

Class Symbol
Crew	1
LOA	7 ft 9 in (2.36 m)
LWL	7 ft 0 in (2.13 m)
Beam	3 ft 8 in (1.12 m)
Draft	5 in (130 mm) 2 ft 9 in (0.84 m)
Hull weight	77 lb (35 kg)
Mast height	7 ft 5 in (2.26 m)
Mainsail area	35 sq ft (3.3 m²)

The Optimist is a small, single-handed sailing dinghy intended for use by children up to the age of 15. Nowadays boats are usually made of fiber reinforced plastic, although wooden boats are still built.

It is one of the most popular sailing dinghies in the world, with over 140,000 boats officially registered with the class and many more built but never registered^[1].

The Optimist is recognized as an International Class by the International Sailing Federation.

1 Origin
- 1.1 History
2 Description
- 2.1 Sail
- 2.2 Hull
3 Introductory sailboat
4 Manufacture
5 Pictures
6 External links
7 Footnotes

Origin

History

The Optimist was designed in 1947 by Clark Mills. The design was slightly modified and introduced to Europe by the Dane, Axel Damsgaard, and spread outwards across Europe from Scandinavia. The design was standardized in 1960 and became a strict one-design in 1995 [1].

The International Optimist is sailed in over 100 countries by over 160,000 skippers and it is the only yacht approved by the International Sailing Federation [2] exclusively for sailors under 16. At the Beijing Olympics, 85% [3] of medal winning skippers were former Optimist dinghy sailors. The Optimist is an International One Design class, with identical boats made of a durable GRP Hull, which means minimal maintenance, and may be purchased complete with sail and "dolly", a small trailor made specifically for the Optimist.

Description

Sail

The single sail of the Optimist is sprit-rigged. Two battens stiffen the leech. It is secured evenly with ties along the luff to the mast and along the foot to the boom, pulled down tightly by a vang. The light, slim third spar, the sprit, extends through a loop at the peak of the sail; the bottom rests in the eye of a short cable which hangs along the front edge of the mast. Raising and lowering the sprit and adjusting the boom vang allow for adaptation of sail trim to a range of wind conditions. As well as this, huge adjustments can be made to sail shape, due to all of the ties running along the mast and boom.

A monograph-style "IO" insignia (after IODA - the International Optimist Dinghy Association) on the sail is a registered trade-mark and may only be used under licence from the International Optimist Association. Optimists also have a national sail number using the Olympic abbreviation of their country and a sequential numbers

Hull

Just in front of a bulkhead, which partitions the boat nearly in half, is the daggerboard case. Right behind it on the centerline of the hull floor are attached a pulley and ratchet block. These anchor the sheet and its pulley on the boom directly above. At the bow resides a thwart to support the mast which passes through a hole in its centre to the mast step mounted on the centre line of the boat. The painter, a rope used for securing a boat like a mooring line, is usually tied around the mast step.

Buoyancy bags are installed inboard along each side in the front half of the boat and at the stern to add buoyancy in the event of capsizing. Two straps, known as Toe Straps, run lengthwise along the floor from bulkhead to stern. These and a tiller extension allow a sailor to hang off the side for weight distribution—commonly called "hiking out". This can be crucial to maintaining the boat in near horizontal disposition during heavy air, allowing greater speed through the water and more manouverability.

The vast majority of hulls today are made of glass-reinforced plastic, although it is still possible to make and buy wooden hulls. Club boats can be found made of straight plastic but are not designed for racing as they way considerably more than a GRP or wooden boat. most hulls are around 5mm thick, reinforced by the thwart and bulkhead. there is also ribbing on the deck in the cockpit of wooden boats. the gunwales mounted around the top of the hull are designed for keeping water out of the boat and to allow the sailor to hike out over the edge of the boat.

Introductory sailboat

Optimists are used for beginners. Very small children are sometimes "doubled up" but usually the boats are single-handers. In this mode children gain confidence and improved skills. Many sailing schools have a number of them and they are the first boat most beginners will sail.

The Optimist is the [4] biggest youth racing class in the world. As well as the annual world championship the class also has six continental championships, attended by a total of over 850 [5] sailors a year. Many of the top world Optimist sailors immediately become world-class Laser Radial or 4.7 sailors after they "age-out", and even average Optimist racers later do well in the "more advanced" classes including double-handers such as the 420 and 29er.[6] Optimists provide real international competition because they are manufactured to the same specification by dozens of builders.

The first World Championships were held in Great Britain in 1962, and they have since been arranged annually. For the first 20 years, the class was dominated by sailors from the Scandinavian countries, with 13 world champions. In the 1990s Argentina was by far the dominant country but since the turn of the millennium there has been no single dominant country, with the 27 medallists coming from 16 countries on five continents.

Optimist Specifications & Construction: