Hi all,
I recently got a 1987 Sunfish; and my local yacht club has a sailing program that I am volunteering for. I am only volunteering in the morning, and they told me that if I wanted, I could tag along with the afternoon classes. they have classes with 420's and Optis. If I tried to tag along in my sunfish (normal rig, not race rig), do you think that I would be able to keep up with the C420's in about 15kts of wind? what about in more. I have read that the Laser is much faster than the sunfish, and I would assume that the C420 would totally blow it out of the water (no pun intended). This might be pretty broad, but how fast is the Sunfish in compared to the Optis (I would assume it is faster); how fast is the regular sunfish compared to the sunfish race rig, is it worth upgrading?
Portsmouth numbers are a way to handicap boats. The lower the number the faster. As you can see a 420 and Sunfish are about the same until it gets really windy. A Laser is always faster. An optimist is super slow. How to calculate results using Portsmouth Numbers
A racing Sunfish is faster, mostly due to the centerboard. Probably not with the cost of upgrading unless you will be racing.