Olympic Aero ?

Aerodynamics only gets better as boom height reduces, but the bigger win on any boat that is not a run through skiff is keeping area down low, as you don’t have a heap of rm on these boats.
You don’t have rake control on all oppies, but on the racing boats, I would venture that there are kids 13-16yo who are better at sailing and feeling the nuances of tune than any of us. Further, whilst it will always favour smaller kids or ones who can stay small enough at 16yo to make the experience count without sinking the thing, kids of 11-16 come in vast range of size and weight so tune ability is a positive.
As a point of order the oppie rake adjust is a stainless cup with thread adjuster quite expensive, similar to what is used on Finn Europe ok.
The zero system really about having replaceable plastic bearings a deck and heel as a means of avoiding the wear issues in the likes of laser etc where you are wearing out the grp at bdeck and heel which is very hard to repair.
If doing this then there is negligible on cost to add a couple of chocks, and make the heel cup so you can flip it back to front, thus giving tuning options and a bigger weight range.
Maybe shouldn’t have bothered :-).

That rather demonstrates (one of the many) problems with the Optimist more than anything else. An adjustable mast on an entry level kids boat is ludicrous.

Originally posted by rich96 - it just looks wrong compared to the numerous classes who have the boom clamped to the deck (Europe, Laser, D Zero, Finn, OK, Contender, Phantom even)

Interesting isn't it, how what we're used to conditions what we think looks right. On most of those classes the droopy boom is an artifact of a one design sail and bend or rake way in excess of designer's intentions. Aerodynamically it's a nonsense.

Originally posted by tink Originally posted by CT249 Thanks. Still puzzled about the D Zero's ranking, given the applause it has here and the way it looks. On the other hand, it would not be the first boat to over-do the fine bow idea. I think the part of the report that the D-zero being too technical because it has mast rake chock and different traveler systems so distracting from the athleticism speaks volumes of the direction they want the sport to go. Also I don’t think the D-zero or the M14 are really set up for global one design quality production.

I guess the 49er, the 470, the Nacra all have loads of moving parts, maybe they want one without?