Worst. Boat. For Learning. Sailing. Ever!

Over at Proper Course, they're having a competition for the worst sailing innovation ever.  I'd like to humbly submit the Optimist dinghy, which is too small for anyone but midgets and young kids, and too complex for all but expert sailors.  Indeed, while this boat is used the world over for young sailors, it has a myriad of issues from a unique and overly complex sail to easy sinkability.  Why no one has created a simpler, better version is beyond me.

The problems with the Opti begin with it's flotation design.  The airbags are not integral to the boat and must be checked regularly for inflation or they can slip out.  Also, they don't keep water from filling the boat when it capsizes, resulting in lots and lots of bailing or pumping.  The centerboard and rudder are also problematic, as the rudder is too large, encouraging sculling, and the centerboard has a tendency to catch the boom or bridle during gybes, when raised for downwind sailing.

However, it is the sail and spars which are truly problematic, beginning with their attachment to the boat.  The mast sits in a cup after passing through partners, and if not tied down, will wreck the partners in a capsize recovery.  This tie-down is one of at least three lines on the sail which is referred to a "preventer".  Indeed, each optimist sail has about 20 control lines: vang, outhaul, tie-down, sheet, luff preventer, snotter (sprit control), bridle and who knows how many sail ties.  There are strict rules governing most of these lines, including the tightness of the sail ties, and the lengths of the bridle, preventer and others.  Also, having three spars create a sail with 4 corners and 4 sides.  If you have a hard time teaching people to remember clue and leech, try getting 10 year-olds to recall which corners are named head and peak and that there's also a side called the head.

This leads me to the most confusing thing about the Optimist, that there is no luff tensioner.  In light breeze, the luff preventer keeps scallops in the sail by lifting the boom at the gooseneck, but in breeze, the vang (which has no purchase system and is so close to the mast that it provides little leverage) is responsible for tightening both the leech and the luff.  In the end, it is sprit (and snotter) tension which is most important for depowering the sail, but even then, you do so by slacking it, effectively decreasing the wind angle of the trailing chunk of cloth.  This is counter-intuitive for most instructors, let alone tiny sailors, who have been told daily to put all their might each day into tensioning their snotters to reduce those ugly head-to-clue wrinkles.

The Opti's principal advantages are that it's easily transportable (lightweight with short spars) the right size for one sailor, and has a flat (less dangerous) bow.  But even these can also be considered disadvantages.  The flat bow means the boat plows under waves constantly, and goes slow, meaning kids quickly get bored with the boat.  It only comfortably fits one kid, and isn't comfortable for anyone weighing more than 120 lbs.  Furthermore, the lightest boats are exceedingly fragile.

One boat which nearly succeeded in solving the opti's problems was a the rotomolded Open Bic.  It's light, cheap, self-bailing and simple.  The main problems here are a pointy bow (the better to do damage with) and a large sail.  They've partially addressed the latter with an optional 3.8 square meter sail, but it's not catching on yet.  (Disclaimer disclaimer:  I have no connections or connections to connections of Bic or the Open Bic but I did once own a Bic pen.)