Introductory Sailboat
Optimists are used for beginners, but most sailors continue to race them up to 14 or 15 years of age. Very small children are sometimes "doubled up" but usually the boats are single-handers. In this mode children gain confidence and improved skills: "The small boats train the champs". Many sailing schools own a number of them and they are the first boat most beginners will sail.
The Optimist is the biggest youth racing class in the world. As well as the annual world championship the class also has six continental championships, attended by a total of over 850 sailors a year. Many of the top world Optimist sailors immediately become world-class Laser Radial or 4.7 sailors after they "age-out" but many also excel in double-handers such as the 420 and 29er.
Optimists provide real international competition because they are manufactured to the same specification by dozens of builders.
The first World Championships were held in Great Britain in 1962, and they have since been arranged annually. For the first 20 years, the class was dominated by sailors from the Scandinavian countries, with 13 world champions. In the 1990s Argentina was by far the dominant country but since the turn of the millennium there has been no single dominant country, with the 33 medallists coming from 20 countries on five continents.
Read more about this topic: Optimist (dinghy)