
Sailing With the Upper Classes
One of our love/hate feelings for sailing is the almost infinite variety of classes of boats that exist. Every one of them has great attributes reinforcing the owner’s belief their fleet is the upper class. What we love is the creativity, ingenuity, culture and regional communities that form around each class. What we hate is the impossible number of classes to support, with each trying to hold on to critical mass for one-design racing or collaborative fleets.

Sailors are inveterate tinkerers, and no boat is ever good enough. As soon as a boat is built it needs an upgrade, tuning or some other alteration. Sometimes that means a class design needs improvement, but every so often, someone comes up with a “better boat” that will save sailing. In tennis, once you’ve bought your racquet you’re done with the equipment and you start playing tennis.
The problem with one design is sailors all seem to want something different, so today there are almost enough designs to have one for every sailor. This means thousands of different one-design fleets with too few boats in them. This is why sailing became one of the early sports to focus on the currently fading-from-favor diversity, equity and inclusion — at least as far as boats were concerned. Rating systems enable a huge variety of designs to race together on an approximately fair basis, as long as the conditions and course selection favor your boat. Ratings have attempted to make sure everyone is invited and feels included, though equity has been harder to achieve.

We do love the fact that there are so many classes that are adopted by different regions: San Francisco Bay with the El Toro, Folkboat, Knarr, Bird, J/105, Express 27 and on and on. We may have the largest Alerion 28 fleet in the country. Newport Beach may have the largest fleet of Harbor 20s, though Annapolis, Maryland, also has a huge fleet. Inverness Yacht Club on Tomales Bay has one of the nation’s most active 110 fleets. We think the Monterey Peninsula Yacht Club has the only West Coast fleet of Shields one-designs. Newport, Rhode Island, is another hotbed of Shields racing. We can’t possibly keep up with it all.

The Midwest is known for scows but also has huge fleets of Lightnings, Thistles and much more. They also currently have a large fleet of TP52s (Transpac 52s, pioneered by West Coast designer Bill Lee and others) on the Great Lakes. New England has Beetle Cats, Turnabouts and a thousand other classes. FJs, 420s and ILCAs (Lasers) are everywhere. So are Hobie Cats. The Alamitos Bay Yacht Club has a fleet of Tempests. J/Boats are also everywhere. Cal 20s are in San Pedro. Talk about diversity! What class is at the center of your club or harbor?

This is just the lightest scratch on the surface of a deep dive into the classes that predominate in any particular harbor or club. We think of Moore 24s at Richmond and Santa Cruz Yacht Clubs, though we know they’re scattered across many Northern California clubs. Richmond has El Toros and SCYC has Jesters. That is until GMOs came to sailing when the Opti monoculture came along. Sailing in a huge fleet of Optis is great for race training, but it feels like having all the local coffee shops replaced by Starbucks. It’s a difficult culture shift as we strive for efficiency and economies of scale and lose local flavor.

The diversity of fleets across the country or the world is an endless topic of discussion. And new designs seem to come out weekly. These thoughts were triggered by emails from both Andrew Lesslie and Samantha Chiu telling us how Sequoia Yacht Club has rebuilt a fun, active Open 5.70 fleet in Redwood City (story coming soon). Mike Dorgan and friends have rebuilt an active Finn class on San Diego Bay. The Star (est. 1911) and the 5O5 (est. 1953) designs are decades old, but boat construction, rigging, tuning and sails are still being refined by dedicated aficionados who love their class. These and many more classes have their passionate participants.

There are so many boats dangled in front of us it’s a wonder that we decide at all. However, it’s that first boat that often elicits the most memories and affection. The first solo sail in an El Toro, Opti, Sabot, Jester, Sunfish, or Turnabout, or sail with a friend on a Lido 14, Blue Jay or Fireball (remember them?) created great memories for hundreds of thousands of sailors. New boats are forming new memories. How would you ever decide which fleet to join? After covering stories about all these fleets, we find sailors are generally really great people and the fun you have afloat is more about the people than the boat. Some classes attract more technical people, others are more athletic, others more tactical, but we rarely meet anyone who doesn’t like being out on the water with their friends, regardless of the boat.

The issue of gathering critical mass in fleets happens all the way up and down the food chain. At the top end there are people racing megayachts, Wallys, Perini Navis or, alternatively, perhaps they should have bought a J Class sloop. Difficult decision. There are maxis, mini-maxis, TP52s, Santa Cruz 70s, MOD70s and no shortage of every almost-possible permutation of sailing technology combined into a huge variety of options. Cal 40s still rock! Most industries are trying to reduce the number of SKUs, but not sailing. We keep growing our options. Foiling is adding the latest wrinkle to the mix. We’re still not sure how a lot of these new foiling dinghies land on a dock or pull out on a hoist, but we’re sure they will find their fans and they’ll have fun.

Each of these many classes has a few well-established home base clubs. We’re wondering what your club is known for. Some clubs are more cruisers than racers, but most clubs have a class or two that stand out like those pictured here. The West Coast hub for 110 sailing is definitely Inverness Yacht Club. Who would claim to be the hub for Santa Cruz 27s? Is there a hub for Hobie 33s? Columbia 5.5s? Etchells 22s? Solings? A Melges 15 fleet is getting established in Southern California.

The classes not listed here would keep you reading past your bedtime, but we’re interested in hearing from folks about some of these classes not mentioned. The one you grew up sailing. A class that your yacht club is known for. A class you’re trying to grow. The variety is almost infinite and there’s certainly a class for you.
If you’re looking to join some racing on the Bay, you could look at the recently distributed Northern California Sailing Calendar or put your name on the crew list. Sailing in multiple fleets is a good place to start. You might find wet, wild, athletic dinghies the perfect fit, or it might be the culture and heritage of wooden boats, or you might want to head offshore to dodge whales in the ocean. There are lots of options.
Whichever way, when you join a class, you can rest assured it will be your ticket to meeting great people, having fun, and being in the upper class.
Great Article John ! It is truly amazing how many small boat classes there are- with their own cult following. I truly appreciate you including our 110 Class, and Inverness has the biggest 110 fleet in the known Universe. We also have a newly rebuilt Fleet 19 in Puget Sound. Come sailing with us sometime !