In true Kiwi fashion, their innovative developments have mostly been carried out by amateurs – sailors keen to build a faster boat for next season – who taught themselves design and boat-building skills out in the back shed and then learned to sail their new light boats in innovative ways.
Many Kiwi sailors have started out as youngsters racing P-class boats. Whether they progressed through the one-design classes of Zeddies, Idle Alongs, and Xies, experimented with R-class or Q-class boats, or in more recent times got into Optimists, Laswers and 470s, they have honed their skills and worked out what makes boats sail fast.
This book tells the story of fast light boats in New Zealand: of those designers, builders, sailors, boats, and clubs whose ideas and enthusiasm have made a difference to the way the world sails.