Optimist Dinghy

The Optimist is a 2.31 m (7 ft 7 in) single-handed children’s training dinghy designed by Clark Mills in 1947 in Clearwater, Florida, with a pram (scow) bow, a single sprit-rigged sail of 3.5 square metres, and a daggerboard. It is the world’s most numerous racing class, sailed by over 150,000 children in more than 120 countries, and is World Sailing’s recognized youth single-hander for sailors up to about 15. It is a strict one-design and is not itself an Olympic class, though most Olympic sailors trained in it.