By Michael Timmermann
Probably the greatest success story of a boat class began 76 years ago. The fact that the Optimist has become the largest international regatta class today, with an estimated half a million boats sailing worldwide, is thanks to an ingenious idea and many coincidences. This is its story.
The design of the small sailing box was developed in 1947 by the boat builder Clark Mills in the small American town of Clearwater, in Florida on the Mexican Gulf. Mills was commissioned to build the first boats by his friend Major Clifford McKay, manager of the local radio station TWAN. As a guest speaker at the Optimist Club of Clearwater, McKay had suggested that the club organise competitions with small boats in the sheltered bay off the town.
From the soapbox to the boat
The Optimist Club of Clearwater is a charitable organisation that is still committed to providing leisure activities for disadvantaged children today. At the time, this included organising soapbox races in Clearwater.
Organising these races was always very time-consuming, as there are only a few suitable hills in the area and many roads always had to be closed. On 14 August 1947, Major McKay presented the club with his idea of moving the soapbox races to the water.
His suggestion was to move the spectacle to the wide and sheltered bay in front of the city with specially made small boats. According to McKay's ideas, these - like the soapboxes that had been common up to then - could be built by a father and son in a short space of time without any special knowledge or tools.
The optimist maintains his basic characteristics
The core of the idea was therefore the simplicity of the construction. McKay went so far as to envisage a sail made from bed sheets. And finally, the boat should not cost more than 50 US dollars, because that was how much the club had given as a sponsor for the construction of a soapbox up to that point.
With these specifications, McKay presented his friend, the boat builder Clark Mills, with major challenges. After a few attempts, however, a design was created that promised to fulfil the requirements. The decisive point was a flat front section. This made it easier to build the boat himself and provided the necessary buoyancy in the foredeck despite the boat's small size.
The dimensions were based on the length of the cheapest plywood panel. It was possible to build three boats from four panels measuring eight by four feet with only a small amount of waste.
The boat was named Optimist Pram or just Pram in English because its shape with its flat bow is reminiscent of the transport vehicles of the same name.
The first Optimist was built in 1.5 days
As the result was to be presented at the club's next meeting, Clark Mills only had a day and a half to build the first prototype after he had already spent a week on the design.
But the project succeeded, and on the afternoon of 3 September 1947, McKay's eleven-year-old son was able to make his maiden voyage in the bay in front of the Dunedin Boat Club.
His father took the prototype to the Optimist Club meeting the following day and presented it to its members on Thursday 4 September in the lobby of the Gray-Moss-Inn Hotel. In the subsequent vote, the club accepted the project. The Opti was born. And both its name and the class symbol still bear witness to its origins in the Optimist Club of Clearwater.
In terms of their appearance, however, the first optis differed somewhat from those of today. The boats were built entirely of wood and were buoyant even after capsizing and therefore did not yet need a buoyancy chamber. But the original Opti was already sprit-rigged, and until around 1972 the mast, boom and sprit were made of wood, initially also in the later plastic hulls.
McKay was not a sailor and fortunately Mills soon talked him out of his original idea of tailoring the sail from a bedsheet. However, the square shape of a bedsheet is said to have inspired Mills to create a sprit rig.
The Optimist remained licence-free
The financial hurdles for the budding Opti sailors were deliberately kept low. Clark Mills himself only earned five dollars for building a boat. And as the local Rotary Club also financed ten of the small boats right from the start, the fleet in Clearwater quickly grew to more than 25 Optis.
The hulls were painted and rigged by the sailors themselves. Over the next few years, Mills produced a total of around 200 Optis in his shipyard. He also sold the plans for a small fee. He never demanded licence fees for replicas. He ceded the rights to the Optimist Club of Clearwater free of charge.
First regattas with the Optimist
The regattas were organised every second Sunday of the month throughout the year. The entry fee was one dollar per year and had to be earned by the Opti sailor himself.
There were two groups, and from 1948 girls were also allowed. The boats were assigned to a specific sailor and the sponsor was named together with their respective sailor at the award ceremony.
The local newspapers and radio also regularly reported on the competitions. The sponsor, who also owned the dinghy, could and should advertise on the stern of the dinghy. This advertising label was the distinguishing feature of the boats and replaced the sail number used today.
Soon neighbouring clubs were inviting each other to regattas. The Optis were then transported by furniture lorry. The competitions took place according to fixed rules, which were determined by a committee of the Optimist Club of Clearwater. Participation in the regattas was compulsory for sailors of sponsored boats. In the afternoons after school, the children sailed their dinghies from island to island in the mangrove swamps of the bay off Clearwater, without any supervision and also without life jackets, as there were no life jackets for children yet.
The only conditions were that a boat was not allowed to sail alone and the Optis had to remain within sight. So the first Opti sailors taught themselves how to sail without a care in the world. They were astonished to realise that the Opti could still be sailed in winds of more than 20 knots, without a life jacket, without buoyancy aids and without a coach.
"Life was simpler", states Clifford McKay in his memoirs, "life was simpler". He continues: "In our youth, we spent almost as much time on the water as we did on land."
The competition was inevitable, because wherever there are more than two boats on the water together, it is always a race.
In the neighbouring Dunedin Boat Club, the first Opti sailing courses were soon held, albeit without the usual accompaniment of a trainer on a motorboat.
The first optimists burn out
By the spring of 1949, the fleet in Clearwater had grown to 29 boats, which were stored in a fishing hut next to the Dunedin Boat Club. On the night of 20 April 1949, however, the hut burnt down completely and all the stored optis fell victim to the fire. The project seemed to be at an end.
However, the local radio station TWAN and the newspapers reported on the tragic accident. The willingness to help was overwhelming. The phone never stopped ringing, and within just two hours the money for 43 new boats and a further 6,000 dollars to build a new boathouse had been raised. It seems paradoxical, but the fire helped the Opti to become more popular.
The optimist arrives in Europe
In 1954, the boats caught the eye of Danish architect Axel Damgaard while travelling and he brought the blueprint back to Denmark. The first European Optis were built according to these plans at the Royal Danish Yacht Club in Copenhagen. The Opti subsequently found an influential supporter in Paul Elvstrøm, an internationally renowned and very successful sailor. Thanks to his help, the boats spread across Scandinavia and throughout Europe.
The first Optis in Germany were sailed in 1962 in what is now the Warnemünde Sailing Club. The previous year, a group of young sailors from Denmark had taken part in the GDR Sailing Week in Warnemünde and presented the club with one of the boats and a construction plan as a gift.
In those early years, only plans or kits in wood were available to buy, and there were still many different designs. Particularly in Scandinavia, the design was later improved to meet the needs and ideas of Opti sailors. However, there was not always agreement on the building regulations.
Foundation of the Optimist Association
In order to keep the class together, the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA) was founded in Finland in 1960. Under the leadership of Viggo Jacobsen, the boat was then declared a mandatory standardised class in its design as the "International Optimist Dinghy" in 1973 in a spectacular night-time solo effort by the IODA. "Clark had built a boat. Viggo had built a class," said Robert Wilkes, his successor, later.
Until 1985, two different designs existed side by side in the USA: the original "Optimist Pram", modelled on the 1947 model from Clearwater, and the "International Optimist Dinghy", which was further developed in Europe.
Its dimensions are essentially the same as those of the historical model. The boat's speed has improved significantly, particularly due to the introduction of the flared and battened sail, which was influenced by Paul Elvstrøm.
In the seventies, plastic was introduced as a construction material and was initially favoured by sailing schools in particular due to its low maintenance requirements. Top sailors, on the other hand, continued to favour their familiar and lighter wooden constructions for a long time.
After just six years, more than 1,000 Optis were counted in Florida alone. The fleet of organised Opti sailors is now estimated at 170,000 boats in 115 countries. In total, there are probably half a million worldwide. At the opening of the 1972 Olympic Games in Kiel, almost 300 Optis took part in the supporting programme, and Clifford McKay watched the spectacle on television.
Originally designed as a boat suitable for beginners and stable sailing in sheltered waters, the Opti has developed into a sophisticated piece of sports equipment thanks to careful improvements and its plastic construction with aluminium rigging.
Due to its design, however, there are limits to its speed potential. This is because the Opti has essentially remained Clark Mills' simple boat from 1947, even if it has since evolved from its original social project into a leisure activity for privileged circles.
Initially, the Opti was ridiculed as a children's toy, and the German Sailing Association was also critical of the youngest boat for a long time. However, in his more than 25 years as a board member of the German Optimist Dinghy Association, Günther Nülle made the Opti an indispensable part of the programme offered by committed sailing clubs against all odds.
It is impossible to imagine any sailing magazine today without the Opti. Many famous sailors started their careers in the Opti, a boat that looks like a horse trough, but nevertheless, or perhaps precisely because of this, arouses worldwide enthusiasm. The success story of the Opti is unparalleled.
Renaissance of the original Optis
The author has been an Opti trainer on Lake Starnberg for around 20 years and is the initiator of the 1947 Optimist Prahm support association. The association organises regatta events in the style of the German Sailing League on classic Optis. The alternative regatta formats are intended to convey the light-heartedness and spirit of original Opti sailing. The boats used are restored to regatta standard, preferably built in wood before 1995, but equipped with a modern sail.
The path to the German junior regatta class
- 1954 The Opti comes to Europe via Denmark. Introduction of sails made from Dacron
- 1958 First mention of the Optimist in the magazine "Die Yacht"
- 1960 Foundation of the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA) in Finland
- 1961 In Germany, the first optis are built in Warnemünde (GDR)
- 1962 The first, still unofficial World Cup takes place in England
- 1967 Foundation of the German Optimist Dinghy Association (DODV) by Hans Harro Redlefsen in Schleswig-Holstein
- 1968 First A/B regulation (depending on age)
- 1969 First (still unofficial) German Championship in Kiel-Schilksee
- 1970 Plastic hulls are permitted
- 1971 First (still unofficial) championship in Malente, Schleswig-Holstein
- 1972 Aluminium masts prevail, around 300 optis form a supporting programme at the Olympic Games in Kiel-Schilksee
- 1973 The Opti receives the status of an international class and the class symbol
- 1974 First German championship recognised by the German Sailing Association (DSV)
- 1975 The Opti is nominated by the DSV as an official youth boat
- 1985 New building regulations for plastic boats
- 1995 First worldwide standardisation of building regulations by the IODA
- 2005 Tina Lutz wins the Optimist World Championship for Germany for the first time in St. Moritz
- 2006 Germany becomes world champion again in Uruguay with Julian Autenrieth
- 2008 Paulina Rothlauf wins the European Championships on Lake Garda for Germany
- 2009Paulina Rothlauf becomes European champion again
- 2011Foundation of the German Optimist Museum in Esgrus/Schleswig-Holstein (dissolved in 2020)
- 2013Nils Sternbeck becomes vice world champion on Lake Garda
- 2014After more than 25 years, Günther Nülle is leaving the board of the German Class Association
