New Sailboats Invite Older Models to the Wake

It's January: cold weather, long nights, uncertain markets -- the perfect time to head south for one of America's premier amateur sailboat racing regattas: Key West Race Week, Jan. 21 through Jan. 25, in beautiful, warm Key West, Fla. Spend one minute watching the blazing eye of the setting sun, and you'll know why Ernest Hemingway spent enough time here to rate his own museum.

This year, close to 300 yachts are expected to compete in four divisions and 16 classes at Key West. Among them will be many of the major American racing designs: the Melges 24, the lovely Farr 40, the stately and brutally expensive Swan 42 and many others.

Creeping in among these established classes is a new generation of sailing speedsters: boats that derive much of their design and technology from the recent America's Cup campaign, held in Valencia, Spain.

This new generation of pocket America's Cup boats is using advancements in composite material construction, computer-aided design and improved sails to create a new generation of ultra-thin, ultra-stiff craft that can be sailed with smaller crews and in more flexible conditions. Better yet, these boats cost way less than the billions that, say, Oracle top dog Larry Ellison, or Ernesto Bertarelli, former head of biotech firm Serono (since sold to Merck), spent on a full-fledged America's Cup campaign. ...