Dinghy sailing

In 1887 Thomas Middleton, a Dublin solicitor, considered that yacht racing was becoming an excessively expensive activity, with boats becoming eclipsed by better designs each year.

The Water Wag Club still prospers in Dún Laoghaire harbour, with racing each Wednesday evening during the Summer season.

Towards the end of the 19th century people began to use these small boats for sport and recreational sailing, utilising the opportunities for leisure afforded by the Industrial Revolution.

He developed and contributed to many dinghy classes that are still with us nearly a century later: the Albacore, International 14, National 12, Jet 14, Firefly and Flying Fifteen.

He also introduced the major advance of hull shapes that can plane, and which can therefore reach beyond the usual speed limits for small sailing boats.

In 1928 Uffa Fox introduced planing to the English dinghy racing world in his International 14 boat, the Avenger.

The hull was built of two thin veneers; diagonal internally and fore and aft externally, and stiffened by tiny rock elm frames, all fastened with thousands of copper nails.

Within a week of being launched, Thunder & Lightning won one of yachting's premier racing trophies, the Prince of Wales Cup, held that year at Falmouth.

The device was immediately banned by the Yacht Racing Committee on the grounds that it was unsporting and gave an unfair advantage to its users.

This is because of the earlier work of pioneers such as Uffa Fox, and through the use of modern designs and techniques such as lighter hull materials (e.g., fibreglass and foam sandwich hull construction, which eliminate time-consuming maintenance and constant care that wooden hulls required, although they are rare and only a few people make them some still sail with wooden boats), more responsive sail materials and design, easily transportable boats (many car-toppable), and simpler rigs such as gennakers instead of more complex spinnakers.

In Britain, the RYA regulates racing and provides modular and accredited training courses for leisure and competitive sailing.

Truly open development classes are also almost unknown, the famous line about the 18 ft skiff "the boat shall be 18ft long and the race starts at 2 o'clock" is a myth but open classes will usually allow pretty radical changes within usually some kind of box rule which specifies depth, length, width of hull height of mast and sometimes a minimum weight and sail area.

The idea is that One Designs provide a fair and level playing field for even competition, whereas Development Classes drive boat speed and technology forwards.

A skiff has a flat narrow hull with a disproportionately large sailplan, usually consisting of an asymmetric spinnaker, blade jib and fully battened main.

However, in many cases they can still offer equally close competition, at the very highest standards, which for many racing helmsmen and crews is the most important consideration.

People often "travel" with their dinghies to international races in famous sailing spots such as Lake Garda in Italy.

Cruiser-racer dinghies successfully combine elements of both the immediately previous two groups, offering good racing performance and also being very viable cruising boats.

Arguably the only two world-class cruiser-racer dinghies,[citation needed] in terms of both the extensive availability of top class racing and their suitability for serious cruising, are the Wayfarer and the GP14; of these the Wayfarer has the edge for cruising, once on the water, in part because she is the larger boat, while the GP14 has the edge for racing.

However the Mirror and her larger sisters, and the Heron, can also be regarded as coming into this category.Classic dinghies are typically used as yacht tenders or shore boats, and emphasize beauty and versatility over sailing performance.

Although some are still made entirely from wood, the majority of the most popular classic sailing dinghies combine a fiberglass hull with enough finely finished teak or mahogany to represent the "best of two worlds" approach.

Unlike dinghies, multihulls have high aspect ratio rigs with fully battened mainsails and sometimes, a rotating mast.

This allows the rig to be highly aerodynamic and the reduced drag from the thin hulls, gives a multihull its great speed advantage over traditional monohulls.

The International 14 remains a popular racing class, having acquired racks (for trapezing crews) and a gennaker since its original design.

These generate enough lift to push the hull above the water, significantly reducing friction and allowing speeds in excess of 25 knots (46 km/h).