Optimist Dinghy
(information courtesy wikipedia.org)

• 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 130,000 boats officially registered with the class and many more built but never registered.

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

The Optimist was designed in 1947 by American 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.

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[3] exclusively for sailors under 16. At the Beijing Olympics, 85%[4] 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.

An Optimist dinghy on the beach, rigged and ready to sailThe 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