One Design

A Numbers Game

SA once again presents our annual One Design Survey, put together by Roger Jolly. Check out the numbers and post your comments in our forum. Enjoy.

Boosted by a 167 boat North Americans in Marion Mass. The Club 420 has taken the lead in this annual One-Design Survey. Congratulations to Tyler Sinks and Ben Totder from San Diego who won the regatta counting only first place finishes. They threw out a second. For the results click here.

Before I write any more let me review the un-scientific method for determining my list of the top twenty one-design classes in North America. What I have done is taken the number of boats competing in each class NAs or Nationals for each year. The location of the championship is also included. I think this is a good measure of relative class size and activity. This idea is not new. You can see that Yachts and Yachting has been doing it in England for a long time. To rank the classes I use the average number of boats over the last three years. Many people will notice that some popular Jr. Classes are not on the list and would definitely be at the top if they were. I have chosen not to include exclusively Jr. Classes in the survey. I suppose the Club 420 gets in as a technicality because the class actually does not have any age limit. Some classes don’t hold NAs or Nationals in years that they host domestic world championships. I disregard the given year for those classes.

Sailing World and US Sailing also did their own survey in the last two years. That survey compares total class membership numbers. Not unexpectedly the top classes are more or less the same but in slightly different order. I think this supports the validity of my un-scientific method but you can be the judge of that.

I don't go below the top twenty in this survey because it becomes increasingly more difficult to avoid mistakes. There are too many classes out there that have three year averages in the 30s. A three year average of 40 or above seams to be the line that separates the big classes from the rest of the fleets.

The Laser Radial class is making an appearance in the top ten for the simple reason that I neglected to include them in my previous surveys. I'm sure that they would have been up there all along. Excluding the addition of the Radial all of the classes are the same as last year with some slight shuffling of order. The Star was the class that ultimately got displaced by the Radial. The three year average for the Star was 41.67, just behind the J/105. Next year I expect to see the 29er class move into the top twenty. This class has grown quickly and appears to be gaining momentum on the west coast.  As far as I could tell the 29er was the only class outside the top 20 that broke 40 boats at their 2005 championship with 57 boats. It should be said that they were aided by a World Championship right after the event bringing in lots of international competition. They did however hit 37 boats in '04 without a boost. The Melges 24 and the Formula 18 both got close to breaking the 40 boat line each with 38 boats at their championships this year. Both of those classes have seen steady growth over the past four years.

As I've pointed out in the past it tends to be the "simple" boats that get the numbers. We are still waiting to see a skiff on the list and to be honest there is yet to be a skiff that is even on the radar. There are however some "fast" boats on the list. The MC Scow, Hobie16, 505 and E Scow all count as "fast" in my book. None of those boats are Tornados or Ausi 18s but whatcha gona do, eh?

As usual please send edits, updates and or comments to Roger