one design sailboat

Most Popular One-Design Sailboats

‍ Key Takeaways

• A class-legal boats race is for you to compete without special modifications to the boat
• Small boats are typically one-design but some can be up to 30 feet in length
• The two most popular one-design boat brands are Laser and Sunfish
• Each class association is governed by the US Sailing organization
• Youth sailors greatly benefit from one-design classes to help shape sailing skills

‍ One-design class sailboats come in a variety of shapes and sizes. But what are the most popular one-design sailboats?

Popular one-design sailboats include Laser, 49er, I-420, and Ideal 18. Some popular multihull one-design boats are A-Cat, Isotope, and Hobie 16. Various one-design boat brands will cater to specific races and sailor’s needs in order to provide the best experience.

In my experience the Laser is one of the popular one-design brands in existence due to its rich history and sailors loyalty to the brand. Many other brands are right up there with it in terms of quality and performance.

Table of contents

‍ Top 15 Popular One-Design Sailboats

One-design sailboats are an international class of boats meant for solo sailing and racing. One-design racing incorporates virtually identical boats and some of the popular brands today have the best representation of the design class.

The Laser is the most popular racing dinghy across the world. It is a one-design sailboat they use in Olympic regatta and other world sailing events. There have been over 200,000 of these sold worldwide and they feature three rig setups to accommodate anyone that enjoys dinghy sailing.

The 49er is another sailboat that is considered among the best of world class racing sailboats. This small sailboat is a double handed skiff and requires that you have plenty of skill to handle it. The popularity has exploded since its debut in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

The I-420 is a one-design class sailboat that is sailed around the world. It is commonly used in sailing schools and clubs for sailors that want to hone their skills as a dinghy racer. This boat is classified as an Olympic Development Class for all athletes trying to join the Olympics.

If you are wanting a blend of high performance competitive sailing without being too difficult then the 470 is the perfect boat. This incredible boat was introduced in the 1976 Montreal Olympics and is still currently used today for many of the races for design classes in the Olympics. These boats are used for the men’s and women’s double handed racing.

A popular one-design keelboat is the Ideal 18 that requires skill rather than any special rigging to win a race. It is one of the easiest boats to rig and is best for single handed sailing. You can use either a roller furling jib or self tacking jib to accommodate your sailing needs.

The A-Cat is part of the International A-Class and is an international developmental class for multihull one-design sailboats. It is 18 feet in length and is regarded as one of the fastest dinghy sailboats in existence. They mirror the quality used in the America’s Cup and are used in many races across North America.

Another one-design multihull that many sailors are switching to is the Isotope . This one-design class is a registered Formula 16HP class boat. At just 16 feet it is one of the fastest one-design multihulls out there.

The Hobie 16 is a one-design multihull sailboat that is one of the most iconic sailboats. It is in the Sailing Hall of Fame and is easy to sail. Sailors have loved this boat for over 45 years with over 100,000 sold worldwide.

The 29er is the younger sibling to the 49er one-design sailboat. This boat is a bit more advanced and perfect for youth that are wanting to take the next step up to the 49er. It has a race class devoted to it and is a great alternative to the Laser series if you have difficulty finding one.

A one-design boat that is geared towards a variety of uses does not get any better than the J/30 . It has the appeal of a racer cruiser and can accommodate all different types of sailing experience. This is perfect for those that want to race but not be tied down to limited options on the boat.

For youth that need a great starter one-design boat the Nacra 15 is a perfect option. It is a semi-foiling multihull that requires teamwork and is perfect for those that are building up the skills to one day be in the Olympics. At just under 16 feet it offers the ease of transportation anywhere the water is available.

The Atlantic is a classic one-design sailboat that is 30 feet in length and is fast. It has a keel and offers stability while remaining fast on the water. For nearly 100 years this 30 foot one-design has been at the top of its class.

Catalina 22

The Catalina 22 was one of the first boats inducted in the 1995 Sailboat Hall of Fame for good reason. It helped revolutionize the trailerable sailboat market and is a great one-design boat for sailing. It is great for the entire family and can be passed on for generations if taken care of properly.

A popular one-design sailboat that typically needs three or four people to sail is the J/22 . Hundreds of J/22 boats have sailed over the years since it was used in the 2004 Olympics. Its design allows it to remain competitive against older boats due to the strict one-design class.

The most iconic one-design sailboat out there is arguably the Sunfish . There are over 500,000 Sunfish boats around the world since the 1950’s and are used in roughly a thousand races a year. The beauty of this one-design is that it can be used as a racing boat or for casual day sailing.

Why One-Design Boats are Used for Racing

Sailing has been primarily used over the course of history to ship goods across waterways. Over time designs changed and people were interested in seeing who was faster than one another.

This led to the design of racing sailboats and were first used in the 1800’s in Greece. Fast forward over 200 years later and there are thousands of boats racing across the world in various competitions.

One-design boats are not only meant for racing and can be used for daysailing depending on the brand. If you want to be on the same playing field and for everyone else to do the same then one-design boats are ideal.

Need for Speed

There is a unique feeling when you see another sailboat just like yours and you have the itch to race it. This has always been a driving force behind racing and it is fueled by sailors that have a competitive outlook.

One-designs are meant to allow your skill shine and not the boat aiding in your ability to win. Dinghy sailing are boats that are under 20 feet and are typically handled by less than three people.

Importance of Design

One-designs are a balance of sport and comfort. Some boats are geared entirely for racing but there are plenty that balance perfectly as a daysailer and a racing boat.

Many will also have keels to provide added stability. A small keelboat is great for those wanting to have a bit more stability if they have a fear of tipping over in the water. Small keelboats are also great for those that are new to sailing and require a little help remaining stable.

Best for Training

If you are an inexperienced sailor or you want your kids to lean how to sail then one-design boats are the best option. Since these design classes all have to be similar depending on the boat length it is easier to learn on these than another type of boat.

This allows youth to easily adapt to the boat without being too overwhelmed or discouraged. It also helps if you start out on a one-design boat and then move up to a more advanced boat with a similar skill set needed to operate it.

In addition you can try out different types of one-design sailboats without having to buy one. This will allow you to get your feet wet with yacht clubs or other solo sailing organizations and have fun trying new boats.

What are One-Design Races?

One-design sailing is where an event of racing takes place and all of the boats that are competing are identical or very similar. The reason that these boats are nearly identical is so that no one competitor has an edge based on their boat rigging or any other special influences.

These races are entirely based on skill with minor help from the boat you are using so that everyone gets a fair shot. Everyone starts at the same time and the first to go across the finish line is the winner.

There is an estimated 200 or more one-design race classes around the US and vary in boat length from eight to 40 feet. These races are narrowed down among various racing organizations and clubs across the world.

Different Types of One-Design Races

There are many versions of one-design racing that sailors can join. This all depends on your experience or potentially a club that you are a part of. In the Olympics you will also see various one-design races.

Match races are quite common among one-design sailing. This is where two sailboats are of the same design or very similar are competing against one another to determine a winner.

The only major difference between the two boats sailing against each other is the crews on board each boat. Depending on the experience of the crew will greatly affect the outcome of the race.

Arguably the most common one-design racing is fleet. This is where either a small handful of boats or even up to 100 at a time can compete to cross a finish line in a given location.

These are great because you have a lot of sailors starting at one spot at the same time in very similar or identical boats. This is the same setup used in the Olympics and is why it is the most common race type.

Sailing clubs are great for building experience and camaraderie among your sailing peers. These can vary on one-design use but most will outline exactly what type of racing is going to be conducted.

These typically use various forms of racing types or one-design sailboats depending on location. In addition you can race to be the best of your club and earn a trophy.

Team racing is a bit different than other races that deliver a winner as soon as they cross the finish line. These are usually a few one-design boats with a few people on board and will award points to those teams depending on how they finish the race. The team that has the lowest amount of points after each race is the winner and it will require a few races to determine a winner.

Regatta races can vary based on location and will use different types of one-design sailboats. These races typically last a few days and will need teammates if the event is geared towards a team event. Most people enjoy regattas since they offer one of the best social interactions lasting a few days.

If you have ever wondered what it would be like to travel hundreds of miles or sail for days on end to reach a destination first then offshore one-design sailing is right for you. These races require extensive knowledge in order to remain safe. They typically have one-design requirements so that everyone is on the same playing field.

If you have disabilities and still want to enjoy sailing then paralympic sailing competitions are right for you. These are one-design sailboat races meant to handle skill and can accommodate to anyone attempting to sail.

Related Articles

Daniel Wade

I've personally had thousands of questions about sailing and sailboats over the years. As I learn and experience sailing, and the community, I share the answers that work and make sense to me, here on Life of Sailing.

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Drawing inspiration from the rays of the sun and waves of the water, the SOL embodies the spirit of adventure and the joy of sailing. A one design sailboat perfect for one to four sailors, its sleek lines, ergonomic features and lightweight build redefine the sailing experience, making it accessible to both beginners and seasoned sailors.

optimized for performance and durability, each component can withstand the rigors of the waters while ensuring a smooth and exhilarating ride. From its core composite hull to its open cockpick, every detail enhances the experience of being on the water.

Make it your own with c ustomizable colors for sails, extended splash guard, topside and cockpit non-skid padding and SOL handles. Rudder and daggerboard are available in both wood and composite.

• Length: 13 ft 9 in
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• Hull weight: 120 lbs
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• Sail area: 75 sq ft
• Sail material: 3.8 oz Dacron
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C&C 30 High Performance One Design

The C&C30 is an exciting opportunity for us to take a fresh look at what a modern high performance One Design can offer, and do so with some of the best performance experts in the business, including KND Sailing Performance, a company based in Spain who we partner with on our Grand Prix racing projects like our recent Mini-Maxi Alegre.  Their unique features include a specialty in CFD and VPP performance prediction, as well as performance analysis of logged data for classes such as the TP52 fleet, Volvo 65’s, and the Mini-Maxis.

Starting with the certainty that the new design would need to be light with lots of sail area for exhilarating performance, what would be necessary to reinvent the type in 2014?  Listening to owners and dealers it became clear that previous generations of Sportsboats now require too many crew, and too many professional crew, to sail to their potential.  Professional numbers were easy to take care of with a well-written One Design rule put together by C&C 30 builder and One Design supremo Barry Carroll who stewarded the Mumm 30 and Farr 40 classes to worldwide success.

Addressing crew numbers was another issue, which required some thought to reduce without leaving the boat overpowered in a breeze under its sizable sail plan.  Our solution is to combine the lowest VCG possible with features such as the carbon fin with  a hull shape that has a slim waterline beam at rest, like a conventional sportsboat, for low wetted surface area and drag.  In light airs the C&C 30 should be sailed fairly upright, and with the crew weight forwards as usual to maintain that low drag configuration.  As the wind increases her wider hull shape above the waterline begins to immerse with increasing heel angle, adding significant amounts of form stability and using more of the sail plans power, allowing the crew to shift aft to further increase stability.  This stability from the hull form allows the C&C30 class to limit crew numbers and allows teams to focus on sailing and having fun instead of finding and managing  large crews, it even encourages shorthanded sailing in the right events.

To ensure the C&C30 incorporated the latest thinking in deck and sail handling systems such as the spinnaker retrieval system Volvo Ocean Race skipper Charlie Enright was asked for his input: “Jesse Fielding and I helped design the deck layout for the C&C30 by using our experience on a variety of different boats; everything from Mini-Maxis to Skiffs to other boats in the 30 foot range. It will be ergonomically easy and extremely efficient to use.”

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The Caribbean’s Hot One-Design Fleet

• By Dave Reed
• August 13, 2024

I’d love to look around and enjoy the scenery, but I can’t take my eyes off the leeward bow that’s slicing through the Caribbean at 20 knots. I’d been advised earlier: The fine line between full-tilt and pitchpole is somewhere right around the chine on the wave-piercing bow. The warning also came with a caveat: “The faster we go, the safer we go.”

That’s the wisdom of Pierre Altiere, a master of the Diam 24 trimaran, with whom I’ve scored a ride for the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta. The point of the exercise is to experience firsthand the hottest one-design fleet in the Caribbean. Altiere’s boat is named Cry Baby , which I may eventually come to understand, but right here, right now, all I can think about is the gust breathing down my neck.

I ease the gennaker sheet in my hand and watch the bow submerge. Oh, sh-t, I think. Here we go. I’ve seen pictures of Diams tumbleweeding, but the bow porpoises. A ball of seawater smacks the forward beam and explodes into a cloud of sunlight sparkles and foam.

With a jab of the tiller bar, Altiere redirects the boat and reloads the sails. The daggerboard hums a few octaves higher as we skim across the shallow blue flats of Phillipsburg Bay. It’s thrilling and a little terrifying, and thankfully, we’re just getting started.

It’s an early March morning on St. Maarten’s Kim Sha Beach, on the bustling Dutch coast where six identical 24-foot trimarans sit under palm trees, surrounded by umbrellas, chaise lounges and rental kayaks. Four other Diams swing on their anchors a doggie-paddle’s distance from the beach. This is the homegrown Diam 24 One Design fleet, which in a few short years has multiplied from three to 10. Soon enough, Altiere promises, if his Diam dream scheme pans out, we will be looking at as many as 20.

Altiere, I’m told, is the spark, the one who started it all, and judging by the parade of sailors seeking him out for advice, parts, assistance and you name it, it’s obvious that not much happens without Altiere. As we rig our own boat, interrupted by phone calls and favors, he gives me a quick lowdown on the Diam, which was created by Vianney Ancelin, a French multihull sailor and boatbuilder. Ancelin’s vision was a recreational multihull that average sailors could handle—sporty but not lethal, high-tech but not overpriced. That was the idea before the Tour de France a Voile—a multistage regatta—adopted the Diam as its official one-design. Pro race teams with million-dollar budgets promptly priced amateurs out the class, and then the pandemic put a fork in the Tour. The builder, ADH Inotec, stopped production at just north of 100 boats. With the Tour on hold, however, there was suddenly a pile of secondhand race-ready boats, many with containers full of unused spares, most fetching $20,000 to $30,000.

Enter Altiere, the tall, jovial and hard-charging Frenchman who taught at a sailing school as a young man and then opened his own in Tahiti before landing in St. Maarten, where he operates a thriving private catamaran charter business. As a top-level F18 catamaran sailor not far back in the day, a friend once invited him to race a Diam in France. He knew little to nothing about the boat at the time. “As an F18 sailor, I knew what I was doing,” he says. “I hadn’t raced [in Brittany] in 20 years, but we somehow made it onto the podium, everyone applauded us, and I enjoyed it so much that the next day we started talking about becoming an agent for North America.”

He did, but the big continent was impossible to crack, so he pivoted to a better plan: bring potential buyers to the boat and give them a taste. Step 1: Establish a Diam base at home in St. Maarten and show off the boats. Step 2: Enter them into the region’s big-draw regattas: the Heineken and Les Voiles de St. Barth.

“There’s nothing better than an easy flight to St. Maarten, throwing your bag in the hotel, and jumping onto a Diam that same day,” Altiere says. “Just like me, I was offered a chance, I had a great experience, and right after that, I bought a boat. That’s the easy-regatta concept here: Fly in, race, celebrate, fly out.”

And that’s how “sort-of” New Yorker Adam Holmes and his buddies Ben Ferraro and Bob Young were lured to Kim Sha in late March for the Heineken Regatta. Holmes, an advertising executive and Long Island-based racing sailor, had heard about the Diam fleet through a friend in St. Maarten, who connected him with Altiere, who had one charter boat available for the Heineken Regatta.

How much for a good time?

Five-grand—tops—according to Holmes’ mental math, and that was with a top-shelf condo, on the water, for a week. Altiere’s charter fee, which included four days of racing and two days of practice, was only $3,700—worth every penny on the speed-to-dollar scale. For months, the three of them exchanged Diam sailing videos that they found online. “That was like the start of the adrenaline rush,” Young says, and when they jumped on board for their first figure-it-out-yourself session in St. Maarten, the real thing was a real rush.

“We didn’t get a very detailed briefing before our first sail,” Holmes says. “At one point on the first practice day, we were sending it at like 19 knots, and the hull was so far underwater. Bob had the kite strapped in hard and we were just flying…like really, really on the edge. The Diam guys following us in the RIB and yelling at us in French were freaking out because we hadn’t yet signed any paperwork.”

“At the time,” Ferraro adds with a laugh, “we had no idea we were on the edge—we didn’t know any better.”

But with a few more hours of practice and less than 30 minutes of one-on-one with Altiere, they were ready enough to throw themselves straight into the races. Ferraro was nominated to drive, Holmes got the back-breaking main trimmer’s spot, and Young took on the busy end at the front of the cockpit. 

On the first morning, the breeze is up to 15 knots, and even though the start is in 90 minutes, the vibe on Kim Sha is bizarrely relaxed. Beach attendants rake the sand for the inbound tourists while sailors wander about in farmer-john wetsuits, surf trunks and rash guards, most of them conversing in fast-paced French and tinkering with their boats.

Among them is Erick Clement, one of the originals. He is a master of the Caribbean multihull racing scene and enjoying his retirement from F18 catamaran racing. Daily yoga, and healthy eating keep him young and in Diam-worthy shape.

“The speed is good and the boat is not complicated, but you have to get a feeling for it,” he tells me in his best broken English. “When everything is right, the steering is balanced perfectly, and you listen for the noise of the daggerboard—that helps you know when it is right.”

As a simple three-crew boat, the roles are straightforward. Whoever has the pleasure of helm also gets the traveler—the capsize preventer. The middle crew manhandles the insanely loaded mainsheet, trims the gennaker, and assists with dousing it. The forward crew is responsible for the self-tacking jib sheet, sail controls (outhaul, cunningham, mast rotator), gennaker hoisting and the daggerboard. Between calling tactics and jibing angles, housekeeping the trampoline, and watching for traffic, it’s an active boat for all involved, especially when big-breeze buoy racing in St. Maarten.

“All crew are super-important,” Clement adds. “If one is not playing the game, you can’t do anything. You have to have a good balance with each other.”

That will be a problem for us on Altiere’s Cry Baby because we are rotating new teammates every day. With us for the first day is a strapping young Frenchman named Corentin, who goes by Coco. He’s one of Altiere’s charter boat captains and has some Diam racing experience, which is good because we’re straight into the first start without a lick of practice. It’s a chaotic five minutes of weaving through rush-hour traffic: big custom raceboats, cruisers, bareboats and two 100-footers, all pinging the starting line.

The Diam will go from zero to 15 rapidly, but it’s not the kind of boat you can luff-and-hover on the start. Full speed is Altiere’s preferred approach, and with 45 seconds remaining in the opening sequence, he is stalking next to the committee boat, mentally calculating the layline and time to kill. But the other boats are stacking up at the starboard end, making what looks to be an impossible entry. But, hey, Altiere is the man and the defending champ. This is his domain. Who am I to doubt?

At 30 seconds, he booms, “OK. We go!”

And go we do, bearing away to full hum, straight toward the big catamaran committee boat. Just when it looks like he is going to pull off a high-speed barging start, Holmes and his crew tack in front of us and stuff the boat into irons—three sun-creamed deer in our headlights.

It’s either them or the committee boat, but Altiere pulls the hand break, and we coast to a near stop. The bow of our center hull disappears beneath the catamaran’s bridge deck, and the starboard bow just clears the cat’s starboard transom. I run forward and push off, and Altiere apologizes while cursing the New Yorkers for their erratic driving.

“I mean…it was our first race, and we were still trying to figure out how to tack the damn thing,” Young says. “That was a little nutty.”

“OK, let’s go,” Altiere shouts once again. More trim!” And with that, we’re chasing down the fleet. I pull the mainsheet as hard as I humanly can. The sail is board-flat and the telltales are streaming.

“More trim!” he shouts again. “We do it together.”

He reaches forward with his big right arm, grabs hold of the sheet with one hand, and together we grunt another 2 feet. The weather hull rises higher, and then the center hull breaks the surface. I’m staring at the line that Altiere had drawn on the bow with a Sharpie. That’s my fine-line guide for the week.

“More speed,” he says. “We will get them.”

I pull but get only another inch. He reaches in and gets another 6, finds his gear, and lets it rip.

The collective opinion on Kim Sha is that Altiere is the best sailor in the fleet, and I can see why. He effortlessly threads the trimaran around oncoming traffic, across big waves, and through giant puffs that pin other boats on their ear. He will dive to leeward of another boat and sail right through its lee. Downwind, he sits inside the center hull, hunched, with his hand behind him on the tiller bar, laser-focused. He senses every subtlety of the boat and knows what it will do before it does it. And more than once, when we sail into a lull and our speed drops, he puts his hand up in the air and says, “Bwaah…come on, wind, what is wrong with you?”

He’s seriously annoyed with the breeze for denying him his speed.

The first race is a windward/leeward blur, and we somehow manage a midfleet finish. Same for the others that follow, but our mishaps reflect our thrown-togetherness. We’re fast in a straight line thanks to Altiere’s skills, but every slip-up is a dozen boatlengths lost—and that’s no lie.

Back on Kim Sha, there’s a beach bar 10 feet from the boats. It’s got reggae, cold beer and cheeseburgers in paradise. The fellas from New York are happy to be back on the beach with their recovery juices in hand.

“That was kind of devastating,” Ferraro says. “We were miles behind on all the races, like it was not even close. We weren’t going to drink, but then all of sudden, we’re standing there with a drink in our hand and were like, ‘What just happened?’”

Young isn’t bothered at all about the results. He’s whipped, but it’s worth it: “All I remember was thinking, I’ve never gone that fast on a sailboat. I think our top speed was 20.7. The sound of the boat and that hum going at that speed was just like, holy sh-t. Let’s just hold on.”

With the wind forecast to peak into the mid-20s, the St. Maarten Heineken Regatta’s legendary around-the-island race is next on the to-do list. Big island, big breeze and it’ll be big-time fun, Altiere promises me when we meet at the beach and introduces me to Camille, another of his charter boat captains. She’s petite, and Altiere confesses he had miscalculated the wind forecast when lining up crew for the regatta.

“We will struggle a bit upwind because weight is very important,” he says, slapping a big hand on my shoulder and cracking a big smile. “But we will be very, very fast on the reaches.”

And he isn’t kidding.

To start our circumnavigation, the race committee dispatches us on a short upwind leg. Once we turn downwind and deploy the gennaker, we’ve got many miles of open-ocean high-speed tropical send. In these conditions, Altiere is in his element and sails right up to and past boats that got ahead of us on the upwind leg. Our top speed, according to my watch, is 22.9.

But every downhill has uphill, and way too soon we’re furling the gennaker, lashing it to the trampoline, rounding an orange tetrahedron, and pointing three bows into steep, wind-whipped waves.

“More trim!” is all I hear for the next hour, or “More speed!”

Each time, I pull with everything I’ve got, the rope shredding the palms of my cheap gloves. With only the leeward bow in the water, Cry Baby kisses wavetops, making this upwind slugfest that much more enjoyable as we short-tack the island’s coastline. After one final tack to port at the top of the island, Altiere gives us the command we’ve been waiting for: “Go gennaker, now!”

The moment that sucker fills, the daggerboard is singing, water is exploding through holes in the trampoline mesh, and we’re cruising at 20 knots. Altiere carves up and down following seas and reels in the boat to leeward of us as if it’s dragging a drogue. The three of us are pinned to the aft beam, weight back as far as it can possibly go. There will be no pitchpoling today. Lush green island to starboard, sparkling blue sea all the way to the finish. It’s heart-racing tropical sailing the likes of which I’ve never experienced.

Later, as I shuffle to a hotel shower, I get a pop-up alert on my Garmin watch that I’ve never seen before: “Recovery Time Delayed. A high level of activity today slowed your recovery.”

As if I need reminding.

The New Yorkers had a heck of time getting around, unaware of water pouring into an unsealed cockpit hatch, enough to have their Torquedo floating inside the hull. “We were hanging with everyone until we got to the top of the island,” Ferraro says. “But once we got around the top of the island, everyone just peeled away from us. We had no idea why.”

Hundreds of pounds of water sloshing around the center hull will do that to you.

Regatta organizers serve up a feast for the next day, with a full menu that includes a 20-mile distance race to Marigot Bay on the French side of the island, a windward-leeward race in the bay, and a return distance race. Our new crew for the day is 13-year-old local Optimist champ Sarah Micheaux, tiny and timid, but seemingly game for her first Diam outing. She speaks only French, so Altiere explains the ropes.

Before we even strike the line on a high-speed gennaker reaching start, Micheaux is shivering, puking, and white-knuckling Altiere’s leg. While redlining at 20 knots, he pats her on the back like a tender father, assuring her that all is well.

We round the reach mark with Micheaux out of commission, so he hands the tiller to me so he can go forward and rotate the mast by hand. It’s my first go at driving, and my tendency is to drive it like a monohull—oversteering through waves and feathering through the big gusts. Altiere corrects me and keeps goading me: “More speed. Even more speed. Good.”

All I have to do is bear away a few degrees, get the center hull unstuck, and the boat levitates with only the leeward bow punching through the waves.

“See?” he says. “Speed. Always more speed.”

After the ensuing and harried one-lap windward-leeward race in the bay, we’re lining up for the 12-mile return sprint, which is another shot-out-of-a-cannon gennaker start. Thankfully, this race has zero upwind sailing. This one’s a reach-fest, and this is why we reach through life.

“The sail back from Marigot was just epic,” Holmes says. “Just screaming. Unbelievably fun. We were finally starting to get a handle on the boat.”

On the fourth and final day, we’re back to buoy racing, and while there’s more tears than cheers on Cry Baby , the sort-of New Yorkers are feeling their mojo.

“We were in the mix,” Holmes says. “We had good starts, and we were with the group upwind. There are some cool photos of us kind of like leading the bulk of the fleet around the course—at least that’s what it looks like.”

Ferraro agrees that they were sharp upwind, “but downwind, we just couldn’t find the low and fast mode. We couldn’t figure that out.”

That’ll be next year’s challenge.

 “I’m looking into buying one,” Holmes says, weeks later, back in the office and scheming with Young to go in on it with him. “It’s easy to get to St. Maarten, and from what I’ve seen, they have these cool regattas and beach parties, the sailing is amazing, and it all looks like so much fun. I think about that boat every day, so I definitely have to get back on it.”

Ferraro is hooked as well. “I can honestly say that after all the stuff that went on during the week, good and bad and stuff like that, even with all the chaos and stuff. That was still the most fun sailing I’ve had in a really long time.”

When, and if, they do get their hands on a Diam, there’s only one place they plan on putting it. “If you’re going to do it right, you gotta keep it in St. Maarten,” Young says.

And that’s how Altiere and his St. Maarten crew will get to 20 boats soon enough. If space on Kim Sha becomes an issue, no problem, he says. There are plenty of beaches on St. Maarten to spread the fun around.

“We’ll figure it out,” Altiere says. “I know we can make this work. The dream is real, and there is room for this kind of full-service experience. It’s a gateway to a sailing vacation.”

Sold. More speed coming my way.

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Other peoples, resources & links, the pagan religious practices of the chechens and the ingush.

The following article on the pagan religious beliefs and practices of the Chechens and the Ingush was copied from the December 2010 edition (Vol. 8, No.3) of Interreligious Insight ( link ) — "a journal of dialogue and engagement" published by the World Congress of Faiths. The article was written by Dr. Michael Berman, a teacher and writer whose publications include The Shamanic Themes in Armenian Folktales , Shamanic Journeys through the Caucasus , Georgia through its Folktales and Shamanic Journeys Through Daghestan (please see my short Caucasian bibliography for full bibliographical information). "Michael originally trained as a Core Shamanic Counsellor with the Scandinavian Centre for Shamanic Studies, but these days his focus is more on the academic side of shamanism, with a particular interest in the folktales with shamanic themes told by and collected from the peoples of the Caucasus. For more information: www.Thestoryteller.org.uk". Dr. Berman's article is of great interest, for it contains many quotations from Bashir Dalgat's remarkable "Pervobytnaia religiia chechentsev" ("The aboriginal religion of the Chechens"), first published (in abriged form) in 1893 in Vladikavkaz in Terskii Sbornik , the journal of the "Terskii Oblastnoi Statisticheskii Komitet" ("Terek oblast Statistical Committee"). Dalgat's book is one of the earliest sources of information on the traditional i.e. pagan religious beliefs and customs of the Nakh peoples, and is a highly-valued "primary" source of information for any student of such matters.

Before considering the religious practices of the Chechens and Ingush, it might be best to start with some background information on the region. The Chechens live in a small territory called Chechnya bordered by Daghestan to the east and northeast; Ingushetia and north Ossetia to the west; Russia‘s Stravrapol Province and Cossack region to the north; and Georgia to the south and southwest. The Caucasus Mountains, which stretch along a line 1,100 kilometres long between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, protect the people not only from enemies but from outside influences in general. The Chechens therefore have retained many traditional customs and practices. As for Ingushetia, it was created in June 1992 as a result of the secession of the Ingush from Checheno-Ingushetia, where the Ingush had been very much in the minority. The decision to break away followed the declaration of independence by the Chechens in 1991 (see Matveena, 1999, pp. 91 & 92). The Chechens and Ingush have lived where they are now since prehistoric times, and while the Mesopotamians, Persians, Turks, Mongols, Slavs and others have greatly influenced the region with their wars, conquests and trade, being fiercely proud and protective of their roots and background, the inhabitants of Chechnya have remained ethnically the same for thousands of years. As for the languages spoken by the peoples, both Chechen and Ingush belong to the nakh branch of the nakh- Daghestanian, or northeast Caucasian, language family and they can both understand each other. Although the current generation of Chechens and Ingush are Muslims and what they practise is a localized Sufi tradition, they still preserve remnants of their pagan past in both their traditions and their folktales. Like many other tribal peoples, the Ingush and the Chechens believed in existence beyond the grave and this was reflected in their burial practices: The belief was based on the evidence of eye-witnesses, of people who have visited the other world – very typical of many other peoples of the world. The other world is similar to this one; it is constructed with the imagination of the Ingush and Chechens by analogy with their native land, the mountain region... The other world is under the ground. It is ruled by the underground God, Eshtr or Eter. A man dies only when that God wishes to take him. The other world is called in Ingush Deli-Ailli, while this present world is Deli-Malkhli. The Ingush say, Deli-Malkhli was built in three years, Deli-Ailli was built in seven years. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 25) This, no doubt, partly explains why the numbers three and seven feature so prominently in the folktales from the region. (The fact that traditionally an Ingush or Chechen man is expected to know the names and birthplaces or origins of his paternal ancestors going back seven generations is yet another indication of the importance attached to this number). These peoples did not view death as going to one’s eternal rest, since the deceased in the other world were believed to do “all their work just exactly as in this world, and moreover simultaneously with the latter: when haymaking or harvesting finishes in this world, the work ceases simultaneously in the other world. The only difference is that the dead people work at nights, when the sun leaves the world of the living for the land of the dead” (Dalgat, 2004, p. 26). According to folk belief, at the moment of death, on the boundary between this world and the other one, when the divine Eshtr has already taken half of a man’s soul for himself, the dying man sees the other world with all those who have died before him. Those around him... pose him questions like: “How is such and such a dead person living?”... If the deceased had not been buried in the proper manner... [in a burial vault that was regarded as the necessary dwelling for a dead person], then the dying man would usually reply that the dead man was troubled without a roof. If a memorial feast had not been made for the deceased, then the dying man would say that the deceased had no food and was living on charity. The dying man would be given various errands to perform in the other world too. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 27) As for the burial of a dead person, he was buried along with everything it was thought he might need on the road to, and in, the other world. And at one time in the distant past, this would have included both his horse and his wife (see Dalgat, 2004, p. 32). The Chechen and Ingush concepts of the soul had much in common with those of other tribal peoples, as we can see from the following tale. One day lame Temir, whose son had been lost, called into a smithy. At that time the blacksmith was sleeping, and Temir, not wanting to interrupt his sleep, sat down next to him and began waiting for him to wake up. He noticed that a fly came out of the blacksmith’s nose, crawled along the tongs across a basin to the anvil. Beyond the anvil there was a huge fissure; the fly descended into this fissure and stopped there quite a long time. Then it crawled back out and, after passing the anvil, crossed the basin by the same tongs, but while crossing it fell into the water. For a long time it was struggling in the water, with difficulty it crawled out on to the tongs, and went back into the nose of the blacksmith. “It seems I have been asleep for a long time!” “Yes, and I was sitting here all the time you were asleep”. Temir replied. Temir said to the blacksmith, “Amuse me. I have lost my son, and I am in great grief. Tell me something”. “But what can I tell you. After all, we cannot reach what I have just seen in my dream”. Temir started asking him to relate his dream. The blacksmith began, “In my dream I crossed a big river and an iron mountain and went down into a large cave, where there was treasure of gold and silver; for a long time I stood there, not having the strength to tear my eyes away from the brilliance and the splendour. But being conscious that I had to return, I climbed out of the cave. On the return journey when I was crossing the river, I fell off the bridge and almost drowned”. Temir realised that the soul of the blacksmith had come out in the form of a fly. And guessing that there had to be a treasure in the smithy, he persuaded the blacksmith to give the place up to him. Then after digging up the place where the soul of the blacksmith had crawled, Temir exposed untold wealth, with which he collected an army and subjugated the whole world. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 39-40) This traditional folktale illustrates the ancient Ingush belief in the reality of dreams and that the soul for them was something material rather than an abstract spiritual concept. In fact, it demonstrates an understanding of the soul that is remarkably similar to that of the Siberian Buryats. There is a parallel Buryat tale in which the soul takes the form of a bee when it crawls out of someone’s nose for an out-of-body experience (see Dalgat, 2004, p. 40). What the people practised can be described as a form of polytheism. Among the Chechens there were two systems of gods – a cult of ancestors and folk heroes and the worship of the deified powers of nature. The High or Supreme God, the King of all creation and the Father of all other gods is called Dela, Dyala or Deyla... The relation of Dyala to the other gods is like that of a father to his children: everything of course depends on Dyala; what He wants, that has to happen; but the other gods also act independently, each in his own sphere. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 98) The Chechens also had great respect for the one-eyed god Elta, the patron of hunters, who rules over the forests and the wild animals. He is the king of the forests and of all its inhabitants, both the forest people and the beasts. Success in hunting completely depends on Elta... In translation Elta means corn (breaded grain), and actually he performs two functions in parallel – the god of hunting and the god of the harvests. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 91) The Sun and the Moon are also anthropomorphised in Chechen folklore. The Sun and the Moon have mothers; the mother of the Sun, or Malkh-Nana, is called Azoy, and the mother of the Moon, or Betti-Nana, is called Kinch. The Chechens say that the Sun comes out of the sea in the morning, and sinks into it once more in the evening; when it comes up on to the horizon, something black separates from it; the people say that it is the sea pouring off the Sun. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 92) The Mother of the Winds was important as well. At the god’s command she would raise a terrible storm to blow away the goods of the dead who had sinned before God. For mediation between the gods and people the Chechens developed a special type of priest or shaman known as a tsaynsag. In order to become a tsaynsag , besides intelligence and good conduct and the respect of the population, the man also required the ability to interpret his dreams and to tell fortunes – qualities required from the Roman augurs, Siberian shamans and Indian priests. These qualities make the priest a real mediator between God and the people... The priest learns the cause of bad fortune and the will of the gods by means of divination, and several methods of divination exist among the Chechens... In former times there were very many sorcerers and sorceresses throughout Chechnya; everybody treated them with respect and resorted to their mediation in every difficult situation such as illnesses or general misfortunes, asking them to find out the cause of the misfortune and advise them how to be saved from it. “They were the mentors of the people and, like the gods, faithfully gave interpretation of dreams and explained illnesses”, said Ganzyh; they were called dzyry. (Dalgat, 2004, pp. 84, 85) Various forms of divination were practised, including the measuring of a shawl with the elbow, winding cotton wool round a spoon, making use of stones, mirrors, sheep’s bones and also by consulting Arab books (see Dalgat, 2004, p. 86). Of all the Chechens’ gods, the most mighty and honoured was Seli the Thunderer. In the Caucasus Mountains, the land of thunderstorms, this god found suitable soil for himself. In the mountains the most terrible phenomenon is the thunderstorm with thunder and lightning from them the Chechen has to suffer many problems of all kinds; every minute both his field and his very life suffer dangers from them. It is not surprising that Seli is held in such honour by the Chechens. He is the most terrible and most capricious god for them, and he has to be propitiated more then the others. But at the same time he is just, and punishes only those who deserve it... All the Chechens honour him equally, and one could say that even all of the inhabitants of the Caucasus Mountains (of course under various names) he is a god, not of one community or tribe, but of them all … One can judge the strength of the cult of Seli by the fact that they consider a man killed by lightning (Seli’s firebrand) as blessed, and he is buried quite separately from other dead people” (Dalgat, 2004, pp. 94, 95). A sacred place for the Chechens was the domestic hearth, believed to be chosen by God himself and so inviolable. A terrible retribution follows any insult or disrespect towards it. The fire, the chain, the cauldron and hearth enjoy the highest respect in the home: the chain and the cauldron are respected as symbols of the domestic hearth, while the fire [whose deity is known as Seli] is an indissoluble component of it. Even the ashes, and soot on the ceiling, are considered sacred, thanks to its connection with the hearth. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 53) Apart from the fact that it was considered to be sacred, the family hearth, in concentrating the members of the family round itself, also had an “organising” importance: Its cult sanctifies the power of the head of the family, as a devotee who brings sacrifices to the gods. Its influence [helps to explain] …the sacred character of the family as a community..., and the sanctity and inviolability of a guest as a temporary member of the family. (Dalgat, 2004, p. 55) And anyone who visits Chechnya will have the opportunity to experience firsthand the people’s legendary hospitality. In view of the fact that the peoples clearly believed in the existence of at least one other reality, that it was possible for adepts to undertake soul journeys, and in the efficacy of divination, to regard what was practised by the priests as a form of shamanism would surely be a reasonable assumption to make, even though the term itself would of course have been totally alien to them. As to whether the priests actually entered trance states in the course of their work, though, remains unclear. However, given the popularity of the mystic dance among followers of the Sufi tariqat or religious path, it would seem that people in the region have a natural propensity for doing so, which would suggest that even though we lack concrete evidence, it was very likely to have been the case. BIBLIOGRAPHY Dalgat, B. K. (2004) The Aboriginal Religions of the Chechens and Ingush , Moscow: nAUKA. (Translated from the Russian by David Hunt October 2009, and kept in the British Library. The book was first published in an abridged form in 1893). Jaimoukha, A. M. (2005). The Chechens: A Handbook . new York; London: Routledge Curzon. Matveena, A. (1999). The North Caucasus: Russia’s Fragile Borderland . London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs. Smith, S. (2006). Allah’s Mountains: The Battle for Chechnya . London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks.

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