OK Dinghy - THE FINAL BEAT

About the OK Dinghy
Videos for Sailing the OK Dinghy
Books for Sailing the OK Dinghy
Links for OK Dinghy Sailors
The Vital Statistics
Who’s Who in the OK Dinghy

About the OK Dinghy

Designed in 1957 by Knud Olsen as a preparation class for the Finn, the OK became a hugely popular boat in its own right. Big growth in the 60s and 70s was slowed significantly by the arrival of the Laser in the 80s, but the class is still very popular and attracts very high quality sailors.

The rig is the same as a Finn’s – an unstayed swivelling mast – and the class has followed the Finn’s technical development through the years.

As there is some flexibility within the rules, the boat and, particularly, the mast and sail can be selected to suit an individual’s size, sailing style and, to some extent, their fitness. This makes the class very appealing to a range of sailors.

Videos for OK Dinghy Sailing

The OK Dinghy class has its own Youtube channel with lots of good videos here.

This is very good for sailors in general, but in particular for OK sailors. Club racers should get a lot of benefit from seeing a top sailor racing an OK dinghy in a mixed fleet:

A great training video for OK sailors, with loads of great tips:

Some very good on-board footage with multiple World Champion Nick Craig:

This is brilliant – great names from the OK dinghy class racing hard in extreme conditions:

Books for OK Dinghy Sailing

Specific for the OK Dinghy

Completely OK -The History, Techniques and Sailors of the OK Dinghy
by Robert Deaves

Buy Now

UK & Ireland
United States

chrOniKle – Celebrating 60 Years of the OK Dinghy
Robert Deaves

Buy Now

UK & Ireland
United States

General Books Useful for OK Sailors

The Bestsellers

These three books will help any sailor improve in any class of boat.

: Sailing Fitness & Training by Michael Blackburn

: Helming to Win by Nick Craig

: Race Training with Jim Saltonstall

Sailing Fitness

You need to be physically fit to do well – even just a little bit of all-round fitness can improve your results a lot. These books are all helpful in designing a program that works for you. My favourite is Sailing Fitness & Training by Michael Blackburn.

: Sailing Fitness & Training by Michael Blackburn

: Mental & Physical Fitness for Sailing by Beggs, Derbyshire and Whitmore

: Sailing Fitness Toolbox by Katherine Knight

Psychology

Getting your head right can be as important as getting your technique right. These books will all help with this area, and the Eric Twiname book, Sail, Race and Win is possibly my all-time favourite book on how to improve your sailing

: Sail, Race and Win by Eric Twiname

: Go For The Gold by Garry Hoyt

: The Psychology of Sailing for Dinghies and Keelboats

Books for Self-Coaching by Olympic Coach Jon Emmett

Jon Emmett coached Lijia Xu to an Olympic Gold Medal, and is a multiple World Champion himself. These well written books share the secrets of how to coach yourself and improve your sailing.

: Coach Yourself to Win by John Emmett

: Tactics Made Simple by Jon Emmett

: Training to Win by Jon Emmett

: Be Your Own Sailing Coach by Jon Emmett

: Be Your Own Tactics Coach by Jon Emmett

Sailing Technique and Performance Books by Frank Bethwaite

Frank Bethwaite is a bit of a legend – relentless in his pursuit to understand high performance race craft. His two bigger books (High Performance Sailing and Higher Performance Sailing) can be quite dense to read while Fast Handling Techniques is lighter and easier to read. All are hugely important.

: Fast Handling Techniques by Frank Bethwaite

: High Performance Sailing by Frank Bethwaite

: Higher Performance Sailing by Frank Bethwaite

…and finally, Three Absolute Classics

These three books are nailed-on classics – books that have helped generations of sailors and are still relevant today. Start to Win is a good, relatively basic book that will help get you to the front of the fleet; Winning in One Designs is widely regarded as essential reading for one-design sailors; and Advanced Racing Tactics is more in-depth, is a tougher read, but will help with a lot of in-race strategy.