Favorite
This week’s favorite boat is from Dave Ullman. We hear he’s pretty good…
My favorite all time boat has to be the 470. I sent 11 years campaigning the boat working for a Olympic berth. In the 11 years, I owned 29 470. I was able to help build many of those boats at Harken. This was a great learning experience for me. We were able to do some excellent experimentation with great results. The boat was very challenging to sail and design sails for. The completion in the class at that time was as good as any class in the world, with many of my fellow competitors going on to the AC Cup and other Olympic medals. It was a lot of fun to sail a boat that planes upwind very easily. This leads my to my current favorite class, the Melges 24. It has many of the same attributes of the 470 had, with trainer wheels so some like me in my 60’s still can be completive. Both boats are a gas to sail because of their level of competition and very high performance. My next class I would like to sail is the Moth. I would be interested to see if I can sail a class that is so challenging and fast at my age. It could be great fun!
