The 11 Metre is an inshore racer and daysailer developed by Ron Holland and Rolf Gyhlenius in 1990, during testing in Florida of keel, rudder, and sail combinations. With simplicity and affordability as the initial goals, this sloop-rigged 34-foot yacht has extremely strict one-design rules. The... More
The 1D35 is a strict one-design class featuring a lightweight, planing hull. Designed by the design team of Bruce Nelson and Bruce Marek, the 1D35 is raced with different spinnakers for different settings: a large conventional spinnaker for buoy racing and an asymmetrical spinnaker for open... More
The 2.4 Meter (2.4mR) is a one-fifth scale model of the 12-meter former America's Cup boats. The 2.4mR has many variants and is sometimes referred to as the Mini 12 class, which appeared after the 1980 America's Cup; this class was refined by Peter Norlin of Sweden into the 2.4mR of... More
The 29er was created by the Australian designer Julian Bethwaite, partly as a youth training boat for his popular 49er and partly with an eye towards becoming the Olympic women's doublehanded skiff. Modeled on the larger boat, the 29er has a single trapeze and an asymmetric spinnaker on a... More
The 49er is a doublehanded skiff designed in 1994 by Australian Julian Bethwaite. It has been an Olympic class since the Sydney Olympics of 2000. The first international regatta was held in 1997, not long after the Olympic choice had been made, and now there are nearly 1,000 boats in existence.... More
The international A-Class Catamaran is a singlehanded boat that is uni-rigged and allows a trapeze. The class was developed in the 1960s as part of a move by the International Yacht Racing Union (now the ISAF) to classify four groups of racing catamarans. While the early B and C classes... More
The A Scow is the largest and fastest of the scow family of sailboats. Mainly sailed in Minnesota and Wisconsin, it requires a crew of five to seven. As the oldest one-design sailing fleet in North America, it is has a long history of rules of design, or scantlings, the first of which were... More
Developed in 1954 from a design by Uffa Fox (see also Day Sailer), the Albacore is raced in Washington DC, Virginia, Maryland, New York, Florida, New Jersey, and Eastern Canada. (Outside of North America, the Albacore is raced mainly in Britain.) The boat is well represented on the one-design... More
Named after its designer, Jim Antrim, the Antrim 27 is a sportboat whose large asymmetric spinnaker swings on a patented articulated bowsprit. This 60-degree swivel range allows flexible downwind angling. The yacht's bulb keel retracts to allow ramp launching and can be raised for shallow-... More
The Atlantic class was formed in 1929 for racing on Long Island Sound. Designed by W. Starling Burgess in the late 1920s and actively raced in the thirties and forties, the Atlantic in its first generation numbered 100 boats, built of mahogany over oak ribs. No new boats were built for over two... More
Farr Yacht Design created the hull of the Beneteau First 36.7. There are over 400 of these boats worldwide, built at the French builder Beneteau's American facility, which opened in 1986 in Marion, SC. Boats in Beneteau's "First" series, seven of which are still in production... More
Designed by Drake Sparkman in 1947 and intiated as a class in 1954, the Blue Jay is a sloop-rigged sailboat primarily sailed on the East Coast, from Florida to Maine. Over 7,200 boats exist. Models are still being built in wood as well as in fiberglass, which the class association approved in... More
Designed by sailboat and kayak innovator Paul Cronin, the Bongo is a recent design that can be sailed by two but is intended for singlehanded use. At 15 feet in length (4.6m), but with only a 3-foot waterline beam (91cm), the boat has hiking wings the side that extend its span to six and a half... More
The Buccaneer 18, a doublehanded racer and day sailer, was designed in 1966 by Rod Macalpine-Downy and Dick Gibbs. It premiered at a 1967 regatta sponsored by Yachting Magazine, where it took second place, after a Thistle. The Buccaneer is a centerboard boat that planes in 8-10 knots of wind and... More
The Bullseye dates back to a 1914 design by Nat Herreshoff. Production in fiberglass begain in 1949 and included the addition of a cuddy cabin, plus a more modern rig and sailplan with a symmetric spinnaker. This version, which is still raced and produced today, is called the Cape Cod Bullseye.... More
The Butterfly was designed in Illinois by John Barnett, in 1961, as a smaller offshoot of the C Scow. Barnett reduced the length of the hull from 20 to 12 feet and replaced the C Scow's double rudders and lee boards with a single rudder and centerboard. Over 10,000 boats have been built... More
The Byte, designed by Ian Bruce, is a high-performance singlehanded dinghy. At 12 feet (3.7m) long, it flies only a small mainsail whose users appreciate its simplicity. The narrowness of the four-foot-three (1.3m) hull makes the Byte unsuitable for more than one sailor. The Byte's rigging... More
At 20 feet, the C-Scow is one of the smaller scows racing. It is cat-rigged but nevertheless is sailed with two or three people for weight stability and to operate its two bilgeboards and one rudder. The C-Scow began with a box rule in 1906 and evolved into a one-design class, with rules held by... More
The C-Lark 14, designed in 1964 by Don Clark, is engineered for high performance and durability. Her agility and response will satisfy the needs of sailing enthusiasts who demand an easy-handling day sailor that will withstand the rigors of hard use with little maintenance. The C-Lark is easy... More
The California 20, or Cal 20 commonly, continues to be a fun one-design boat on the West Coast and Hawaii. eight fleets enjoy this 20 foot, 2000 pound keelboat. Most of the 1945 hulls were produced in the 60's and offered a unchanging, simple racer at a reasonable cost opposing the... More
The Cape Cod Frosty is a very small boat, just six foot four in length overall. It was designed by Tom Leach in Massachusetts in 1984 and appeared in its first championship regatta the following year. Despite its diminutive size, the cat-rigged Frosty, which has a daggerboard, is for use by... More
This boat for families or couples was designed at Catalina Yachts in 1983 as a more modern version of the builder's Omega 14, with the addition of a cuddy, a foredeck, and a slightly longer hull. The Capri 14.2 wasn't intended as a racing class, but owner Frank Butler had built the... More
The Catalina 22 was the first and longest-running model in the highly successful Catalina Yachts series of keelboats. It can be made with either a swing, fin, or wing keel. First introduced in 1969, in a Mark I run that numbered over 15,000 boats, the Catalina 22 went into a Mark II version in... More
The Club Flying Junior, built by Vanguard and Performance Catamaran, is a popular choice on the college circuit and in club racing. This lightweight 260 pound dinghy offers the challenge of 3 sails (main, jib and spinnaker) with the ease of a simple boat design and comfortable tanks for hiking.... More
The Club 420 offers consistent performance for more that 100 high school and college programs. The boat is comfortable and bouyant, making it safe and challenging for new sailors ready for working on a double-handed boat. The simplicity of the rig and the challenge of working on a trapeze and... More
The comet is a two-person dinghy designed by C. Lowndes Johnson in the 1930s for racing on the Chesapeake Bay. It was conceived as a smaller version of the Star, but one well-suited to the shallow Chesapeake Bay and easier for younger sailors to use. The first Comet fleet was formed at the... More
Designed by Frank Butler, the founder of Catalina Yachts, in the late 1960s, the Coronado 15 is used in both adult and collegiate racing around the U.S. The most active fleets are on the West Coast, including British Columbia, and fleets are also found elsewhere in the Northwest and in Texas,... More
Production on the boat that would be renamed the Corsair 28 started in 1997, when Corsair Trimarans updated its popular 11-year-old F-27 boat. The resulting 28-foot boat, first called the Corsair F-28 but changed in 2001 to just Corsair 28, is a folding trimaran whose overall beam of 20 feet (6m... More
The Day Sailer was designed by Uffa Fox and George O'Day in 1958 and was one of the first generation of boats to go directly into fiberglass production, with an aluminum mast and boom. The pun in its name acknowledges the Day Sailer's status-in line with the intent of its designers-as... More
The Dragon was designed in 1929 by the Norwegian Johan Anker, a two-time Olympic sailing gold medalist. The boat became an Olympic class itself in 1948, holding its position there until 1972. It is one of the few Olympic boats to also enjoy a popular following as a daysailer. There are 1,500... More
Raced with three or four people, the E Scow has a hull shape nearly identical to the larger A Scow. Like other scows, the boat is raced primarily on lakes in the upper midwest U.S., but there are E Scow fleets as far away as Colorado, South Carolina, and the Northeast, and the boat has begun to... More
Unusually small at eight feet for a racing class, the El Toro is easy to sail and to build, with over 11,000 boats worldwide. Designed around 1940 at Northern California's Richmond Yacht Club, it was intended both as a training racer and as a tender to transport people and goods to large... More
Originally built by Pearson Yachts as the Electra Day Sailer, this fiberglass sloop debuted in 1962. Carl Alberg soon refurbished his original 1959 design, adding a larger cockpit and small cuddy to the renamed boat. Strict class rules maintain the Ensign's simplicity and ease of handling,... More
The Etchells was designed in 1966 by E. W. Etchells"Skip" Etchells, a builder and trophy-winning sailor of the Star class. Known as the E22 until 1990, the Etchells was designed in response to a search by the International Yacht Racing Union (IYRU) for a new a three-person keelboat.... More
The Europe dinghy, a former Olympic class singlehander. The Europe is a small singlehanded dinghy designed by Alois Roland in Belgium in 1960. Derived out of the developmental Moth class, the Europe became a strict one-design class of its own, suitable for light-to-midweight sailors (120-165 lbs... More
Designed by Carl Schumacher and built by Terry Alsberg, the Express 27 was a product of the Ultra Light Displacement Boat (ULDB) scene around Santa Cruz, California. It was modeled on the Moore 24, but is three feet longer and more comfortable, with an oversized rudder for control. The jib and... More
Designed by Farr Yacht Design in 1996 (see also Beneteau First 36.7, Mega Byte, and Mumm 30), the Farr 40 was originally intended for the International Measurement System (IMS) circuit. However, the boat quickly became popular for one-design racing around the world. It is a 40-foot keelboat with... More
Designed in 1949 by Rickard Sarby of Sweden for the 1952 Olympics, held in Helsinki, Finland, the Finn has been raced in every Olympics since. The class crystallized when the first world championship race for Finns was held in Britain in 1956. A one-person centerboard dinghy with a large sail... More
Designed in 1962 by Peter Milne, the International Fireball is a class that is characterized by the responsive, eminently tunable gear that accompanies its strictly one-design hull and sail plans. It combines an unusual scow design-including symmetric spinnaker and chined hull-with a single... More
Designed in the 1950s by Conrad Gulcher and Uus van Essen, the Flying Dutchman was a class with many fleets worldwide by the 1960s. It is a 19 foot 10 in. (6m) dinghy sailed doublehanded with a single trapeze for the crew and a hiking strap (similar in this regard to the International 420 and... More
Designed in 1957 by Gordon K. (Sandy) DouglassGordon "Sandy" Douglass, the Flying Scot was inducted into the American Sailboat Hall of Fame in 1998, the first centerboard dinghy to be so honored. This extremely popular 19-foot dinghy with main, jib, and spinnaker has a low-displacement... More
Bob Perry designed the Flying Tiger 10m using a unique process. He used internet forums to present design ideas and hear responses and ideas from real racers and potential customers. To keep the boat economical it needed to fit inside a 40 foot container. He offered a fixed price for pre-ordered... More
Similar to a Laser, the Force 5 is a 14-foot (4.3m) singlehanded dinghy that is still built in the U.S. It was designed in 1972 by Fred Scott and Jack Evans. Falling out of production with the ascendance of the Laser, the Force 5 was reintroduced in 1994 by Weeks Yacht Yard. The rudder and... More
The Formula 18 (F18) is a sport catamaran that was launched in 1993 and has since spawned racing fleets worldwide. By the year 2000, world championships drew as many as 150 boats, and qualifying races now limit the number of competitors. This two-person boat flies a mainsail, jib, and asymmetric... More
The Frers 33 was designed by the Argentinian group German Frers, which has seen more than 1,000 yacht designs produced. A racer/cruiser with a molded fiberglass hull and deck, the Frers 33 carries a 4,000-pound lead-alloy keel. This sloop was built from 1986 to 1992 at Carroll Marine in Rhode... More
The Geary 18 was designed in 1928 by the precocious and prolific Leslie GearyTed Geary for a contest hosted by the yachtclub:Seattle Yacht Club. After building his first original boat at 14, Geary designed competitive racers of all sizes and cruisers up to 147 feet. The "Flattie," as... More
Schock blended the classic beauty of a traditional daysailer with state-of-the-art marine technology. While the Harbor 20 presents a graceful shearline counter, its thoroughly modern underbody and rig make for a fast and easily-handled contemporary daysailer. The result is a competitive, cost... More
The Highlander was designed in 1951 by Gordon K. (Sandy) DouglassGordon "Sandy" Douglass, who had already designed the Thistle. Douglass would go on to develop a smaller and more popular version of the Highlander, the Flying Scot). The Highlander is still a popular one-design in the... More
Hoart AlterHobart "Hobie" Alter gave his nickname to both the company he founded and to the line of Hobie catamarans he designed. There are several distinct Hobie Cats, but their origins all date to 1967, when Alter invented the Hobie 14 as a boat that could be launched from the beach... More
The Holder 20 was built from 1980 to 1987. Its community is fractured by a conflict between its one-design class association, founded in 1992, and the older open-class association. The open class argues that the boat is too variable to fit a one-design approach, although some owners outside the... More
Windward Boats created the Inland 20 (I20) class in 1998 as a design update of the Melges M20 scow designed by Buddy Melges. Windward Boats still manufactures the I20, which is popular with many former M20 sailors. It has many control lines in a variety of rope or wire riggings and is the only... More
A U.S. regional class, this 18-foot dinghy was commissioned by the Sandusky Sailing Club in 1933 for sailing on Lake Erie and Sandusky Bay. Raced by two or three people, it was designed by Francis Sweisguth, who had also designed the Olympic class Star. Similar to later sportboats, the Interlake... More
Sailing canoes were developed in the late 1860s and 1870s in England and separately North America. Uffa Fox helped to unify the British and American rules, to form the International 10m2 Canoe rule in 1934. The American canoes had always sailed with sliding seats unlike the British canoes. The... More
Designed by naval architect Charles Raymond "Ray" Hunt, the 24-foot (7.3m) 110 was first built in 1939 in Marblehead, Massachusetts. It has a long, narrow, canoe-shaped hull, hard-chined and flat-bottomed, with a bulb keel. When raced one-design, it sails with a spinnaker. A trapeze is... More
The International 14 (I14) is a lightweight doublehanded double-trapeze dinghy that today is characterized by its unusually large sail area. Originating in England early in the last century, it represented the collective best traits of contemporary British 14-foot boats. Given the inevitable... More
The International 210 was designed in the late 1940s by C. Raymond Hunt, who had won the Sears Cup while still in his teens. He created the 210 as a larger version of his International 110. The International 210 measures almost 30 feet (9.1m), has a fin-and-bulb keel, and is hard-chined and... More
The International 420 is a doublehanded class that is used as a training boat for the Olympic class International 470. With an overall length of 420 centimeters (13 ft. 9 in.), the 420 is a single-trapeze dinghy that planes easily and is raced with a symmetric spinnaker. Built in 12 countries,... More
Designed by the French Andre Cornu as a boat that sailors of different weights and ages could use, this centerboard boat became an international class in 1969. It has been an Olympic doublehanded men's and women's class since 1976. Only in 1988 did the Games start to hold separate... More
The International 505, which is 505 centimeters in length (16 ft. 6 in.) but weighs only 280 pounds, is a two-person dinghy designed in the 1950s by John Westell. The high-performance boat features a conventional (symmetric) spinnaker with an unusually long pole, and planes easily. With a large... More
The International One Design was designed in 1936 by the Norwegian Bjarne Aas, whom Cornelius Shields had commissioned when, seeing a previous boat that Aas had designed, Shields envisioned a new version of it as a one-design class. Racing of the IOD began on the Long Island Sound the following... More
The J/105 is an offshore keelboat designed in 1990 by Rod Johnstone (see also J/24, J/30, JY15) for shorthanded racing. Often raced with four or five people but capable of sailing singlehanded, this 34.5-foot boat features a very large asymmetric spinnaker and a class 110% jib. The large... More
One of the newest one-design keelboats, the J/109 is a 35-foot racer-cruiser that features a retractable carbon fiber sprit and a lot of sail, including an asymmetric spinnaker. The boat was launched in 2001 as the first J/Boat to be built in Europe. As with other J/Boats, the main rigging is... More
This 40-foot (12.2m) keelboat takes only two people to sail, including use of an asymmetrical spinnaker on a carbon-fiber sprit. It is a racer/cruiser whose design favors simplicity and independence over the rig modifications that would make the boat go faster but require more crew. Although the... More
The J/22 keelboat is raced as a one-design class with active fleets in North America, Europe, and South Africa. There are nine Canadian fleets and, in the U.S., 20 fleets concentrated in the northeast and midwest regions. The J/22 appeared in 1983, and over 1,600 boats have been built since then... More
With 5,200 hulls built, the J/24 is the world's most popular one-design keelboat. It was designed by Rod Johnstone in 1976 as a prototype vessel in his garage and initiated the J/Boat project. (See also J/30, J/105, JY15.) J/24s went into production in 1977 and already outnumbered MORC... More
Produced by Rhode Island's J/Boats, the J/30 is an enlarged follow-up to the J/24, both boats designed by Rod Johnstone. The J/30 appeared in 1979, two years after the J/24 had initiated the family's building business. With a broad beam, balsa-cored hull, and lead fin keel, the boat... More
The J/35 was introduced in 1983 and built until 1992. There are still over 100 of these successful offshore keelboats being raced in North American one-design regattas, with active fleets on the East, West, and Gulf Coasts and the Great Lakes. The boat was originally designed as a simpler,... More
The J series of boats began in 1976 with Rod Johnstone's design for the J/24. Since 1977, the line has been in production by the J/Boats company, which was started by Rod and his brother Bob Johnstone. The J/80, just over 26 feet in length, is a sportboat with a weighted lead keel for... More
The Jet 14 is raced primarily in the eastern and midwest U.S., with fleets in New Jersey, Ohio, Maryland, and upstate New York. Howard Siddons designed the Jet 14 in 1955 as a doublehanded dinghy capable of planing, with the rig of a Snipe and the hull shape of an International 14I14. In order... More
This two-person centerboard dinghy, used in college sailing, was designed by Rod Johnstone in 1989. Johnstone, of J/Boats, also designed the J/24, J/30, and J/105. The JY15's one-piece aluminum mast flies a main, jib, and spinnaker, and a trapeze for the crew is included. The boat's... More
The most popular racing dinghy in the world for both youth and adults, the 14-foot (4.2m) Laser was designed by Bruce Kirby and put into production in the early 1970s. A singlehanded boat, the Laser became an Olympic class for men at the 1996 games. The Laser is cat-rigged, and the class is... More
All boats in the Laser series are part of the same one-design class. They share the same hull design and are cat-rigged. The most popular racing dinghy in the world for both youth and adults, the 13-foot-10-inch Laser was designed by Bruce Kirby and put into production in the early 1970s. The... More
All boats in the Laser series are part of the same one-design class. They share the same hull design and are cat-rigged. The 13-foot-10-inch original Laser, the most popular racing dinghy in the world for both youth and adults, was designed by Bruce Kirby and put into production in the early... More
The 20-foot Laser SB3 is an open keelboat, raced with three or four people. The SB3 achieves high speeds because of its large sail area, but the boat is still very stable, and the class forbids hiking. The bulb keel retracts for transport on the boat's custom trailer. The class is strict... More
The Lido 14 was designed by Barney Lehman and Bill Schock in the late 1950s, in Newport Beach, CA, and has stayed in production ever since. The dinghy is sailed doublehanded, with main and jib. The boat provides for highly tactical racing, and the class association maintains tight one-design... More
The Lightning was designed by Sparkman and Stephens in 1938 in upstate New York, and there are now 15,000 Lightnings racing in 500 fleets around the world. This centerboard sloop has a hull that is hard-chined for stability, but with flat sections to enable planing. Raced with a crew of three,... More
The Mariner is a 19 foot laminated fibergrlass sloop first manufactured by George O'Day in 1963 , and currently produced by Stuart Marine. Over 4,000 boats have been constructed. The US Mariner Class Association was founded in 1966 to keep the boat safe, encourage its use as a family boat,... More
The Martin 16 is an unsinkable sportboat designed for accessibility by sailors with mobility impairments. All controls are accessible from an ergonomic helm seat, including a joystick control for the rudder. Typically raced with two people but easily sailed by one, the Martin 16 is rigged with... More
Designed by Canadian Don Martin and premiered in 1981, the Martin 242 is still being built by Dencho Marine in California. Over 350 have been built; they are raced by large fleets on the west coast of Canada and the U.S. The roller-furling 110% jib is the only headsail permitted under class... More
The MC Scow is a 16-foot cat-rigged dinghy that is usually raced singlehanded but can be doublehanded under favorable weather and weight conditions. Based on a design dating back to the 1950s by Henry Melges, Sr., the MC Scow was inspired by the J-Scow, which had a smaller mainsail and in turn... More
There are six North American Megabyte fleets: Inter-West, US Eastern, Northern California, South-East, Mid-South, and Vancouver, BC. Called "the gentleman's Finn," the Megabyte can be sailed single- or doublehanded. This dinghy is slightly longer than a Laser but achieves its... More
Melges 17 Melges_17
Photo by Kevin Murray.
The Melges 24 is a popular keelboat that planes easily and is usually raced with a crew of four or five. The boat went into production in 1993 and features a large asymmetric spinnaker on a retractable sprit, a retractable keel for easy trailering, and a carbon... More
Designed by Reichel/Pugh, the Melges 32 was first built in 2005. Its mast, rudder, sprit, and keel fin are carbon fiber, and it has an asymmetric spinnaker. Its tall mast can be rigged with a gin pole. With its almost-flat hull, the boat planes easily downwind. It is typically raced with a crew... More
The Mobjack is a doublehanded dinghy that was developed by a sailor and gunsmith, Roger Moorman, at Virginia's yachtclub:Fishing Bay Yacht Club in 1954. Moorman roughly based the Mobjack's hull on the hull of the Thistle but built it in plastic (i.e. fiberglass) as part of the postwar... More
The Moore 24 was designed in 1968 for the Midget Ocean Racing Association (MORA) to use in the 1972 Transpacific Yacht Race (TransPac). Its initial designer, Santa Cruz surfer and sailor George Olson, was also responsible for the Olson 25, and the Olson 30. According to legend, Olson was ready... More
Designed by Farr Yacht Design, the Mumm 30 is a one-design that emphasizes straightforward simplicity without sacrificing speed. (For other boats by this design team, see the Beneteau First 36.7, Farr 40, and Mega Byte.) The Mumm 30 uses a fractional rig with non-overlapping jib and a choice of... More
With the lightest catamaran hulls relative to their volume of any boat available, Performance Catamarans' Nacra 20 is a recent, high-tech design, relying on computer generation for some of its design elements. Its asymmetric spinnaker, carbon fiber mast, and canted hulls are part of the... More
The Nacra F17 was designed for single handed speed. It was first developed in 2000 as the Inter 17. The main and spinnaker make both upwind and downwind exciting. Designers at Performance Catamarans Inc., continued to listen to sailors making small improvements for the class. New F17's... More
Roy McCullough and R. A. Violette first designed the Naples Sabot in 1932 altering ideas from the Balboa Dinghy and later the MacGregor Yacht Corporation Sabot plans found in Rudder Magazine. The official plans drafted in 1946 showed two key features: a leeboard and a keel for easy towing and... More
Wilbur Ketcham designed the Narrasketuck to accommodate the shallow Great South Bay on Long Island. It was designed in 1930.
The Olson 25 was designed in 1984 by George Olson, Santa Cruz surfer and sailor, who was also responsible for the Santa Cruz 27, the Moore 24, and the Olson 30. The Olson 25 remains especially popular in its home state, with one-design fleets found primarily on the San Francisco Bay. Intended as... More
The Olson 30 is an ultralight keelboat designed in the late 1970s by George Olson (see also Olson 25 and Moore 24). Like other ultralights, the Olson 30 planes easily in a breeze. While usually raced with a crew of six, the Olson 30 has been used for singlehanded and doublehanded trans-Pacific... More
The Optimist is the most popular learn to sail boat with 150,000 currently racing in 100 different countries. It was designed and built in the late 1940's but became strict one-design class in 1992. Now, 30 builders in 23 countries produce class legal boats. This new conformity provides... More
Made of glass-reinforced plastic and introduced by Ray Greene in 1948, the Rebel emerged from the post-WWII search for non-wood industrial materials. A 16-foot sloop weighing 700 pounds, it was the first fiberglass sailboat ever built. Alvin Yougquist, designer of the Y-Flyer, contributed to the... More
The Rhodes 19 was designed by Philip Rhodes after World War II, when an airplane producer sought a new purpose for its molded-plywood construction facilities. The boat, which is raced with a minimum of three people, began to be adopted in New England as a junior trainer and racer. The builder... More
RS K6 was designed in 2002 to be responsive and easy to use like a dinghy, and self righting and stable like a keelboat. Paul Handley achieved this with a narrow lightweight hull built in the UK by Rondar Raceboats and has sold about 100. About half the all-up weight (600 lbs) is in the keel so... More
This 7.9-meter (26 ft.) stiff-masted sloop with fractional rigging was designed by Scott Graham and Eric Schlageter. Production at S2 Yachts began in 1981, and the initial run lasted five years. Subsequent production occurred in 1990 and 1993, resulting in a cumulative tally of about 550 boats.... More
The San Juan 21 is a two-to-three-person keelboat with a retractable keel. Like the San Juan 24, the SJ21 was a product of the Clark Boat Company in Washington State. More than 2,600 boats were produced from 1969 to 1985, some at a second facility in North Carolina. Three hull models, known as... More
The San Juan 24 was designed by Bruce Kirby (designer of the Laser, the International 14, and the Sonar) and built by the Clark Boat Company in Washington State. More than 1,000 were made between 1972 and 1981, and there are active racing fleets in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes. The... More
The Santana 20, designed by Shad Turner in 1977, was one of the first high-performance keelboats produced; its genesis occasioned the first use of the term "sportboat." WD Schock built its last hull (#932) in 1985. Although it is a strict one-design fleet, several design changes such... More
Said to have begun as a sketch on the back of a cocktail napkin in California in the early 1960s, the Santana 22 was the first boat by prolific designer Gary Mull. A first run of 747 boats in fiber-reinforced plastic appeared in 1965. One-design racing was soon established on the San Francisco... More
Modeled after the International One Design and named after Cornelius Shields, who commissioned designer Olin Stephens in 1963, the Shields is a 30-foot narrow-beamed keelboat with a classic look. Sailing is well-balanced and not overly athletic for the racing crew of four or five; the sail area... More
Snipes in close upwind action. The class is international and the regattas are well organized, highly competitive, and well attended.
The Snipe was designed by William Crosby in 1931 and has evolved into a highly successful two-person dinghy with a worldwide following. A 15.5-foot hard-... More
Photo by Johann-Nikolaus Andreae.
Designed in 1964 by Norwegian Jan Herman LingeJan Linge, the Soling first started racing in Norway in 1965. This design became the three-man keelboat class for the Olympics from 1972 until 2000. With its large sail area, the boat requires droop hiking.... More
The Sonar was designed by Bruce Kirby (yachts)Bruce Kirby (designer of the Laser) in 1979, at the request of Kirby's own yacht club, the yachtclub:Noroton Yacht Club in Darien, CT. Designed in response to sailor surveys, the Sonar has an unusually roomy cockpit and is adaptable for... More
The International Star is a 22-foot keelboat that is raced by two people. Sloop-rigged, with a whisker pole, it is characterized by its large mainsail and requires hiking. The Star was designed in 1911 by Francis Sweisguth (see also Interlake) and updated in the thirties, with a wider bow and... More
This singlehanded racer was originally produced by the Alcort company in the fifties and became popular for racing beginning in the sixties. The Sunfish class was established in 1969. The boat's hull measures close to 14 feet but weighs only 120 lbs, making the Sunfish easy to transport on... More
Developed by Advance Sailboat Corporation who had already produced several successful dinghies including the Flying Dutchman and the Windmill.
In 1962 the Advance Sailboat Corporation of Independence, Missouri, under the leadership of Ralph Kuppersmith, was a profitable and active... More
The Tanzer 16's primary use is daysailing. In fact, one version of this boat was built with a cuddy cabin. The aluminum rudder and 20 pound aluminum centerboard provide the durability desired for cruising and a spreaderless, non-tapered mast adds simplicity. The sail plan includes a main,... More
The Tartan 10, or T-10, designed by Sparkman & Stephens in 1978, was the first of what would become a whole new category of offshore yachts suitable for both cruising and one-design racing. Approximately 400 hulls were built. The concentration of T-10s that was established in the upper... More
The Tasar is a light, rigid two-person dinghy designed by Australian Frank Bethwaite, whose son, Julian Bethwaite, is the designer of the 49er and 29er. It is based loosely on the 12-foot Cherub, another boat of Australian origin. The Tasar's design was finalized in 1972 after 13 years of... More
The Thistle, designed in the 1940s by Gordon K. (Sandy) Douglass (see also Highlander and Flying Scot), is a seventeen-foot dinghy that is popular throughout the U.S. A crew of two or three sails the Thistle with main, jib, and symmetrical spinnaker. A trapeze is not permitted for racing, but... More
The Thunderbird is a 24-foot keelboat native to the Pacific Northwest. Ben Seaborn, a naval architect in Seattle, created it in 1958 in response to a competition sponsored by a plywood company in Tacoma, Washington, for a high-performance racer/cruiser design that could be built by knowledgeable... More
The Tornado was designed in 1967 by Rodney March of England, in hopes that it would be chosen as the catamaran for the Olympics. It attained March's goal in 1976 and has been raced in the Olympics ever since. The class permitted changes to the boat in 2000, including the addition of a... More
Marcus and Percival Lowell designed and built the first Town Class as an affordable family daysailer. Originally the wood hulls weighed about 650 pounds. The newer fiberglass hulls weigh 800 pounds. Two people handle the main and jib. The Pert Lowell Company continues to build the 16 footer and... More
The Ultimate 20 is a high-performance keelboat with a fully retractable keel and an extremely large asymmetric spinnaker set on a sprit. It has a wide, 8.5-foot beam, and in the interest of affordability, carbon fiber is used only in such key areas as the keel and rudder. The boat was designed... More
The Vanguard 15 is a lightweight doublehanded dinghy that is raced predominantly in the United States. Less than two decades old, it was created in the Northwest by Bob Ames, but fleets have also established themselves in Florida, California, Texas, and states in the Midwest. Raced both at the... More
Designed by Brian Bennett, the Viper 640 was named Sailing World's 1997 winning Boat of the Year overall, as well as in the magazine's Performance One-Design category. Ballasted by its (lifting) 220-pound (100kg) bulb keel, the Viper has some of the stiffness of a true keelboat but,... More
The Wavelength 24 was designed by Paul Lindenberg primarily for MORC racing, but is raced in one-design fleets on the U.S. West Coast. This keelboat is still in production at Lindenburg Yachts, Lindenberg's Florida company, which also produces several other in-house designs. Fleet number 1... More
The original Wayfarer was designed in 1957 by Ian Proctor, a prolific English designer whose boats and technical innovations were particularly lauded in Britain. Besides his designs for dinghies and cruising yachts, Proctor was known for the tapered, extruded aluminum mast he built in 1953-the... More
Gaff-rigged, with main and jib, the Wianno Senior is a 25-foot sloop. Horace Manley Crosby designed the Wianno Senior in 1914 at the request of sailors at the Wianno Yacht Club on Cape Cod, who wanted a boat particularly suited for racing on venue:Nantucket Sound. With its adjustable centerboard... More
The Windmill is a two-person dinghy designed in 1953 by Clark Mills (boatbuilder and designer)Clark Mills, who also designed the popular youth training boat the Optimist Pram. The Windmill's lightweight displacement hull, which planes in 10 knots of wind, was innovative for its time.... More
A 1982 creation of Bay Area designer Tom Wylie, the Wylie Wabbit is remarkable in being a keelboat with a trapeze. For the sake of speed, it is also unusually narrow, given that it sleeps three people, with a five-and-a-half-foot beam for its 24-foot length-wide enough to just barely fit two... More
The Y-Flyer evolved from a boat built by scow sailor Alvin Youngquist in 1938. Although the Y-Flyer is similar in appearance to a scow itself, its hard-chined hull is only slightly less flat. Reverend John Quinton refined Youngquist's design and built the first true Y-Flyer. The design,... More