Optis set sail for US Nationals in California

by Rich Roberts on 10 Jul 2009
As many as 300 boy and girl dinghy sailors ages 7 to 15 will descend on the Port of Los Angeles community of San Pedro, Calif. July 18-26 for the US Optimist National Championships, hosted by the Cabrillo Beach Yacht Club.

It may be the largest one-design regatta ever on the West Coast, but it's only a fraction of the largest dinghy class in the world, now numbering more than 150,000 in 110 countries---all age 15 and younger, by class rules.

What do they already have in common with America's Cup winners Ed Baird of the U.S. and Dean Barker of New Zealand and Olympic multi-gold medalist Ben Ainslie of Great Britain? Their first boats were Optimists, too.

In fact, Baird's son Tyler, 13, will be one of the competitors, representing the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Yacht Club. Dad was Alinghi's helmsman in the 2007 America's Cup victory.

Also in the lineup: Twin brothers Christopher and Duncan Williford, 14, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who finished first and sixth among 198 competitors from 22 countries in the Opti North Americans just concluded in the Dominican Republic this week. Christopher also is the Nationals defending champion.

Lindsey Allen, sailing director at Lauderdale YC, said, 'We're very proud of them. They've sailed at LYC since they were in the Green [novice] fleet. They're back and forth [competitively]. Duncan won the Team trials two years ago.'

Axel Sly, 15, of Weston, Fla. will be coming off his third-place finish in the North Americans. Luke Muller, 13, Ft. Pierce, Fla., was 11th.

According to a detailed survey, 85% of the sailing medal winners at the 2008 Olympics at Qingdao started sailing in Optimists, up from 74% in 2004.

All of that should provide ample inspiration for the competition scheduled in three phases: Team Race Nationals July 18-21, Girls Nationals July 22 and open Nationals July 23-26, including open days for preparation, practice and awards.

It should be windy---13 to 18 knots most summer days. The venue is known notoriously as 'Hurricane Gulch,' fed by compressed sea breeze funneling into the San Pedro Channel between the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Santa Catalina Island 22 miles offshore.

Races for novice sailors will be sailed on flatter water off the beach inside the breakwater, while the championship races are scheduled to be sailed outside in more challenging conditions on the open ocean near the 96-year-old Angel's Gate lighthouse.

CBYC's Junior Sailing program director, Steve Natvig, said that will test the best.

'There's a huge thermal affect that happens during the summer, so we do get a lot of wind,' Natvig said. 'It’s going to be tough racing. If it's too tough, there's a plan to move the kids back inside. They're splitting the fleet now so the Green fleet won't have to deal with that.'

Either way, the Opti is unsinkable. As the International Optimist Dinghy Association website pitches its case, 'The Optimist is, quite simply, the boat in which the young people of the world learn to sail.'

The Observer's Book of Small Craft describes the Opti as 'a flat-bottomed, hard-chine, pram-bow dinghy with una spritsail.'

A less formal description once overheard at a yacht club bar was 'a bathtub that breeds the best sailors.'

The Optimist dinghy, strictly singlehanded, is 7 feet 9 inches long with a seven-foot waterline, a beam of 3 feet 8 inches and a draft of 5 inches with the centerboard up, 2 feet 9 inches with it down. The mast is 7 feet 5 inches tall and carries 35 square feet of sail. Total weight: 77 pounds.

It has been around since shortly after World War II when it burst into global popularity over just a few years' time. According to an account by the Lauderdale Yacht Club, its name came from its development as a youth project by the Clearwater, Fla. Optimist Club, a nautical spinoff to the city's annual Soap Box Derby for homemade downhill race cars. The initial design was by a local boat builder, Clark Mills, soon modified by Denmark's Axel Damsgaard when it spread to Europe and standardized in 1960 as a strictly one-design class in 1995.

http://www.cbyc.org/optiregatta.asp
http://www.optiworld.org
http://www.usoda.org
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimist_dinghy