One-design

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One-design There are two primary methods of competition in sailboat racing, one-design (also known as Spec series) and handicap. One design refers to a racing class that consists of just one model or design of boat or vehicle. In one-design racing the first boat to finish wins the race. In handicap racing, typically time is added or subtracted from the finishing times to determine the winner. Having a rigid one-design specification keeps design experimentation to a mimimum and reduces cost of ownership. The popularity of one-design increased in the 1970s with the introduction of laminate construction using fiberglass reinforced plastic (FRP) and mold building technology. This process allowed the mass production of identical hulls of virtually any size at a lower price.

As a general rule, the tolerances are strictest in smaller boats like dinghy classes and small keelboats. All one-design classes will have a class association that will determine the measurement rules for the class. Olympic one-design classes have some of the strictest tolerances, for example Laser, Finn, Star, and the former olympic class, Soling.

For some classes, this might mean that everything is designed and produced at the same factory, or by only licensed manufacturer in any country or region, so that all racing vehicles have identical parts, for example Laser, Melges 24 or 49er boats.

In other classes, 'one-design' would refer to conformance to a standard specification, with the possibility of alterations being allowed as long as they remained within certain tolerances, for example J/24, Puddle Duck Racer, Tartan 10, Etchells, J105, Farr 40. After the hull length overall (LOA) exceeds 27 feet, people generally refer to the boat as an offshore one-design boat or yacht.

In other classes, the one-design class may have organized around an existing fleet of similar boats that traditionally existed together often for commercial purposes, for example, sailing canoes, dhows, and skipjacks, or which developed a common hull form over the years, for example, A-scows.

In contrast to 'one-design', other offshore sailboats race under a variety of handicapping rules and formulas developed to allow different type boats to compete against one another. Handicap rules include Portsmouth Yardstick, PHRF (originally Pacific Handicap Rule Formula, now Performance Handicap Rule Formula), IOR, IMS, IRC, Americap.