Olympic Aero ?

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.

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 :-).

I think the ease of replacement of bearing is the bigger thing. Prolongs life of boat.

Which Laser rigs do you think we will see in 2024? (do you think the new rigs being rumoured had any bearing on the decision (despite not being trialled))

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.