Sunfish (dinghy)

The Sunfish is a popular one-design class of sailboat which was developed in the 1950s. It is a singlehanded boat, meaning that it is sailed by one person. At under 14 feet in length and 130 lbs. in weight, the Sunfish is easily carried in a luggage rack or a light trailer. The Sunfish is used as a day sailer or a racing boat, with over 1000 racing events every year worldwide.

Cortland Heyniger and Alex Byran created a company called Alcort in the 1940s. Their first sailboat, introduced in 1951, was called the Sailfish and was similar to a large wooden surfboard with a sail, a rudder and a centerboard. It was available in either finished or kit form.

Carl Meinart – one of Alcort's first employees – created the classic shape of the Sunfish sailboat in the 1950s. Key to the Sunfish's success are simplicity and low cost. A Sunfish has only two lines, the halyard and the sheet; the lateen sail is fixed to the spars and is stored by simply wrapping the sail around the spars. The only other controls are the tiller and the dagger board. A single person can easily handle the Sunfish, and the "board boat" design with it's small cockpit resists swamping allowing it to carry up to 3 people. The wide, shallow V hull allows it to plane and achive a Portsmouth handicap of 99.6, which is very low for a boat of its size. A new Sunfish costs about US$3000, with older used models in working condition going for under US$500. Because of it's low cost and simplicity (it is often reguarded as the simplest boat to sail, and is widely used for teaching sailing) it is also perhaps the most popular sailboat ever invented; over 500,000 Sunfish have been built. Because of this, the Sunfish is part of the American Sailboat Hall of Fame.

The great popularity of the Sunfish has lead to many imitators; Starfish, Sailfish, Aquafin and Phantom are all boats virtually identical to the Sunfish.

Specifications

LOA: 13 ft 9 in (4.2 m) Beam: 4 ft 1 in (1.2 m) Sail area: 75 ft² (7.0 m²) Hull weight: 130 lb (59 kg)

Designed by Alexander Bryan and Cortland Heyniger

The original Sailfish/Sunfish was designed in 1951 as a wooden kit boat. by 1959, hulls were being commercially produced in molded fiberglass composite. Sunfish have been made by AMF/Alcort, Sunfish Laser Inc., and Pearson Sailing Yachts, and they are currently manufactured by Vanguard Sailboats.

External links

http://www.sunfishclass.org/ International Sunfish Class Assocation website

http://www.teamvanguard.com/boats/m/_general/sunfish_home.asp Manufacturer's website

http://sunfishmanuals.com/manuals.html Source of Sunfish manual covering 1955 to current production boats.