Wouter,

You are just picking out individual events to back up your claim, which is rubbish. Go and look at the sailing world records web site, http://www.sailspeedrecords.com. The USA dominates.

Look at the Olympic results www.sailing.org/olympics2004 the UK dominates, is that the UK being "has beens". In fact I wouldn't even have bothered to reply to this if you hadn't used the phrase "has been".

As for the most innovative boat design that would be me

Gareth