They don’t call them the Optimists for nothing!

To be an optimist, in generic terms, is to look for the best possible future. In the Optimist class of sailboat racing, the future is everything.

“All of your Olympic competitors, all of your America’s Cup sailors, they all started with the Optimist class,” said Bub Kovacs of the Brant Beach Yacht Club.

Not quite, but close enough. No less than 85 percent of the medal winners in sailing at the 2008 Beijing Olympics had their start in Optimist racing.

An Optimist sailboat is an approximately 7½-foot-long dinghy designed for single-handed sailing for kids.