When all boats are not created equal

The premise of a one design class is to provide a platform which puts the focus on sailing ability. But the degree at which equipment is minimized depends on the class rules, and in this report by Santiago Lopez, all boats are not created equal in the Optimist Class:

Years ago, when I was working for Fraglia Vela Riva, we had a large pool of talented sailors, all coming directly from the sailing school. This allowed us to teach them all the sailing techniques from the beginning.

At that time, we had a collaboration with a boat manufacturer that kindly offered us the opportunity to select a couple of sailors and have custom hulls built for them. I chose two sailors with the same experience and speed in all conditions, but with two different styles of handling the boat, even though both had been taught in the same manner. My assumption about that difference was based on the differing personalities of the sailors.

On the day I met the boat manufacturer in Riva, we discussed the type of settings we wanted for the two boats. We first decided to understand the characteristics of their hulls before making a decision. After testing the hulls using the seesaw technique, we discovered that they were completely different from each other. – Full report