Dinghy sailing is the activity of sailing small boats by using five essential controls:
The Laser, is a highly popular family of small one-design sailing dinghies using the same common hull and interchangeable rigs with different sail areas. The laser is designed to be sailed single handed although class rules permit two sailors. Bruce Kirby designed the laser in 1970 with an emphasis on simplicity and performance.
Ronald Moore may refer to:
The Sunfish is a personal size, beach launched sailing dinghy. It features a very flat, board like hull carrying a lateen sail mounted to an un-stayed mast.
The Moore 24 is a keelboat designed by Santa Cruz, California surfer/sailor, George Olson. It is one of the first ultralight displacement sailboats, entering production in 1972. This design, along with the Santa Cruz 27 and Olson 30, changed the world of performance sailing with their breakaway downwind speed. Rumor has it that George Olson was going to abandon the mold to the prototype Moore 24, Grendel, with a wild ride down a hill when it was rescued by Ron Moore and put into production. To improve on the sailing characteristics of Grendel, Moore used jacks to pry apart the original narrow-beam hull tooling, increasing the maximum beam by about one foot to 6'8". This resulted in the characteristic asymmetry of the Moore 24, where one half of the boat is about 2½" wider than the other. Despite this irregularity, Moore 24s appear to sail similarly on each tack.
The Hobie Cat is a small sailing catamaran manufactured by the Hobie Cat Company. Hobie's line of products includes surfboards, sailboats, kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and pedalboards, although the Hobie Cat Company is known worldwide for its catamarans. Hobie also designed a successful monohull, the Hobie 33.
The Snipe is a 15 1⁄2 foot, 2 person, one design racing dinghy. Designed by William F. Crosby in 1931, it has evolved into a modern, tactical racing dinghy with fleets around the world. The class is governed by the Snipe Class International Racing Association (SCIRA) and recognized by the International Sailing Federation as an International Class sailed in 30 different countries. There have been over 31,000 Snipes constructed worldwide.
The International Offshore Rule (IOR) was a measurement rule for racing sailboats. The IOR evolved from the Cruising Club of America (CCA) rule for racer/cruisers and the Royal Ocean Racing Club (RORC) rule.
The 18 ft Skiff is considered the fastest class of sailing skiffs. The class has a long history beginning with races on Sydney Harbour, Australia in 1892 and later in New Zealand. The boat has changed significantly since the early days, bringing in new technology as it became available. Because of the need of strength, agility and skill, the class is considered to be the top level of small boat sailing. In Australia this boat is called the "Aussie 18" due to its inherent connections to Australia. It is the fastest conventional non-foiling monohull on the yardstick rating, with a score of 675, coming only third after the Tornado and Inter 20.
Santa Cruz Yachts was a U.S.-based yacht design and manufacturing company. The offices and production facilities were located in Santa Cruz, California before being moved to Greencove Springs, Florida.
The Olson 30 is a sailboat designed by George Olson of Santa Cruz, CA around 1978. Olson was a surfer and surfboard shaper who decided to design a 30' ultra light displacement boat while on a delivery from Honolulu to Santa Cruz on Merlin, a 68' Bill Lee designed and built ultralight sailboat which had competed in the biennial Transpac race in 1977. During this delivery, Olson came up with the idea while sailing with Denis Bassano and Don Snyder, who lent their initials to the prototype's name, SOB 30. The resulting boat was christened Pacific High, and it was launched in 1978.
The term sportsboat first appeared in the late 1980s and early 1990s to describe trailer sailers that were optimised for high performance at the expense of accommodation and ballast. The very definition of the term "sportsboat" is evolving.
Bruce Schwab is an American sailor and ocean racer. He circumnavigated the globe twice on his Open 60 racing yacht OceanPlanet becoming the 240th and then the 254th solo sailor to do so. Schwab is the first American to officially complete the famous Vendée Globe Race (2004–2005).
Bill Lee is the designer of noted ocean racing yachts, and one of the founders of the Santa Cruz school of boatbuilding. Known to many as the Wizard, Lee's designs achieved notoriety in the 1970s, with Chutzpah and Merlin having won the Transpacific Yacht Race from Los Angeles to Honolulu many times. Merlin set and held the course record between 1977 and 1997, making the 1977 crossing in only 8 days, 11 hours and 1 minute.
The SKUD 18 is a class of racing sailing boat. It is a lead-assisted skiff with a tube-launched asymmetrical and a modern high performance stayed rig. The boat was created for trials held by the International Association for Disabled Sailing who were looking for a new two person boat for an additional medal allocated to sailing for the 2008 Paralympics.
RS Sailing is an international designer, builder and supplier of sailboats and dinghies and associated goods and services supported by a worldwide dealer network and class associations.
The Ultimate 20 is a trailerable sailboat that was designed by Jim Antrum as a sportsboat first built by Ultimate Sailboats in 1995. It is a one-design racing keelboat recognized by the International Sailing Federation.
An ultra light displacement boat is a modern form of watercraft with limited displacement relative to the hull size.
The possibility of further speed increase [...] will always attract ardent believers in their speed virtues, just as they have done in the past. The ULDB are, however, very capricious creatures in terms of performance. They may deliver the goods, provided there is just a right kind of wind and from the right direction to sail 'full and by'. And since weather is also capricious, the ULDB and weather seldom suit each other. 'Light displacement craft', Davidson remarked, 'are not new in principle'. For many centuries there have been canoes, proas and the like in the South Pacific and other places, with similar displacement in proportion to the sail area and hull length. Racing dinghies, or dinghy-like modern offshore racers, so common today, are typical examples of the same principle. In all instances the combination of the major design features: displacement, sail area, length and stability [i.e. —] power to carry sails effectively, is radically different from the combination found in the traditional seaworthy and wholesome yachts.
The Santa Cruz Yacht Club (SCYC) is a yacht club founded in 1928 and is the oldest, and currently the only, yacht club in Santa Cruz, California.
Merlin was designed by Bill Lee. Merlin is considered to an Ultra Light Displacement (ULDB). The racing yacht has won numerous offshore yacht races including the Transpac in 1977 establishing a course record that stood for 20 years. She is a 68 foot long by 12 foot wide monohull weighing in at 25,000 pounds. Merlin is currently owned and raced by William F. "Chip" Merlin, founder of Merlin Law Group, for his team Merlin Yacht Racing.
