Highly competitive sports very rarely produce an athlete that totally and completely dominates the competition, and when they come along, they change everything. Rohan Veal has done exactly that in the International Moth class. He might've earned an SA award just for his annihilation of a talented field at the Worlds in Garda this year, but what clinched it for us was the effect that his technique and promotion has had on the entire world of foiling boats. Were it not for Rohan, it's pretty safe to say that foiling would be years away from where it is now, and like the best sportsman, Rohan has gone into early retirement while still on top, letting the rest of the planet catch up to his level of skill and style. Oh yeah, and as the Director of Sales for BladeRider, he's managed to get so many boats sold that the factory can't keep up with demand.

Also in a league of his own is Francis “The Machine” Joyon. He chose a low-tech, green design of a multihull to race around the world single-handed, and proceeded to smash li'l Dame Ellen's record to smithereens, all the while displaying superhuman seamanship and speed with incredibly short periods of sleep and rest. Joyon is no spring chicken, but he may be one of the strongest-willed people in sport. In contrast with the self-promoting bullshit artist below, Joyon does it with grace and humility, and he truly has no equal in solo ocean sailing.

Definitely a love him or hate him kind of guy, Tony Bullimore sailed a heavy, obsolete, monster catamaran to Australia in 2007 to prepare for a half-assed RTW attempt that was doomed from the start. He then sat around in Hobart waiting for a weather window for more than four months – enough time to go around twice – while his PR team spun off release after release extolling the virtues of Bulli. He finally left Hobart (or was kicked out), and sailed less than 2000 miles before a forestay pin let go, forcing TB to sail painfully slowly to safe harbor in Auckland. A fitting cap to a career that's been marked by bullheadedness, busted boats, and steaming piles of bullshit.

Da Big Pimp:

SLAM - they are absolutely everywhere. Boats, sailors, regattas, events, stores, SLAM has made an amazing impression on this sport. Hell, they are even here at SA! We love good marketing, and they indeed do that.

Best Multihull Achievement:

There is only one man who could ever even come close to this one. With nicknames like "the machine" and "the professor", Francis Joyon is truly in his own league when it comes to solo multihull challenges. His level of performance in breaking - no, shattering - no, annihilating Ellen Macarthur's RTW record is something we might not see for another generation. The bare-bones IDEC, designed by Nigel Irens, was created to reflect Joyon's personal and sailing style - simple and strong, with minimal things to break and no internal combustion engine anywhere to be found. Wind and solar power were plenty for Joyon's autopilot and computer needs - a lesson for other long distance solo racers as they take on new challenges and sponsors attracted to the "green-ness" of sailing. Joyon is a shining example of personal determination, and it's safe to say that he's put his boat-breaking incident on the rocks of Brittany well behind him. We can't wait to see what the Machine has on the horizon.

2007 saw ISAF's historic vote against any multihull event for the 2012 Olympic Games, deciding that real sailboats only have one hull. In doing so, ISAF voted against the fastest boat at the Games, the only event open to both men and women, a permanent fixture for three decades, the recommendation of its own Events Committee, the strong endorsement of the host nation, and the International Olympic Committee's specific demands for more spectator-friendly racing. Both ISAF and US SAILING sent a few unmistakable messages with the vote: First - these organizations are monohull organizations only, second, that fast boats are less important than slow ones, and third, that rich, fat boys are more important than fit, agile ones, regardless of what the public or the IOC want to see. ISAF and US SAILING win this award, hands down.

Fred Eaton and Magnus Clarke raced their Steve Killing-designed C-Class Cat Alpha to a phenomenal sweep of Steve Clark's Cogito in Toronto – ending Clark's domination of the class for more than a decade. While not a real one-design, the class is cool enough to jump categories, and the openness and transparency of the racers is something that other classes should strive to emulate.

Sure, it has some build issues, sure it is expensive, sure it had a less than stellar beginning (not allowed to race in 25 knots of breeze at Key West), but the boats are very, very fast, challenging to sail well, and have grown in numbers to end up being a very impressive OD class. That would be the Melges 32.

2nd Honorable Mention:

We don't get to see much from them on this side of the pond, but it's impossible to argue with the massive numbers of Classe 40's popping up in every ocean race that will have them. Every European designer seems to be drawing a 40, and as toughly built, and simply sailed as these boats are, they should endure for years as they trickle down into the wider world of shorthanded offshore racing.

Despite a great boat, tons of interest, and a solid group of affable owners (with one glaring exception), the Mumm 30 Class still can't get its shit together. This great little boat is going by the incredibly un-sexy stop gap name “M-30” until the inexplicably slow renaming process is complete. Hopefully, the new builder and Class can capitalize on the widespread love of the 30 before its too late and something better, cheaper, and more easily available comes along. It might be too late already.

Farr seems to be making a real comeback lately, and 2007 saw great results for loads of FYD boats. The pimp-daddy of them all was the new STP65 Rosebud, winning the Sydney-Hobart and nearly everything else she touched, but Farr had top finishes across the board down South and around the world, in every event from Cowes Week (Leopard) to the Transat Jacque Vabres (Foncia).

Honorable Mention:

There are a slew of young (and not so young) guns doing some really nice work, Jason Ker, Mark Mills, Jeb Rogers, but we like what Tim Kernan is doing with the new line of Santa Cruz Yachts, and his new 44' beer can boat looks like lots of fast.

Anybody seen Bruce Nelson? Never one for publicity, he seems even less visible than ever. Smart as hell, it is too bad he doesn't do more, PR or design wise. But we are going to give this one to Juan K. What he did to Pyewacket was near criminal, and we don't recall much of his other recent work being much better. Genius has its drawbacks.

Australia's McConaghy Boats had another bang-up year, with boats coming from both their Australian yard and their new Chinese facility. Their quality builds for 2007 included the Fastnet-dominating Leopard 3, Patches, Yendys, and over 150 Bladeriders, while older McConaghy boats like Alfa Romeo 2, Rambler, Wild Oats, and Morning Glory continued to kick ass, helping us forget all about Genuine Risk. McConaghy also landed some pretty sweet projects, including the new Irish VO70 and some STP65s, and the upcoming Melges 20 will come from their China factory. Porn, all of it.

Goetz continues to dominate much of the TP52 builds, and if there ever was a discerning group of owners, this is it. We trust their judgment on builders.

David Vann gets this one, along with every other idiot who simply “trusts their gut” as they build some piece of shit in their backyard for the next “epic” voyage of self-discovery and self-immolation. We're not putting down backyard builders – in fact, we salute people who design and/or build their own rides. No, we're just tired of “forward-thinking individuals” who fail to realize that there is a huge body of knowledge to draw from in building a boat, and float their ridiculous contraptions into predictable disaster, often making sailors look like buffoons to the rest of the world. We may be buffoons, but we'd prefer to prove it ourselves.

The resurgent Viper 640 started with a decade-old design that never really got much traction and somehow, they now have a rapidly growing class of sexy carbon-masted raceboats in the Northeast, Southeast, and Southwest US. If they could only get their shit together to take advantage of the weak dollar, build them here, and export them worldwide.

The stakeholders and reps of the Star and Finn Classes somehow marketed their way into staying in yet another go-round of the Olympics despite the IOC looking for faster, more viewer-friendly racing. In the cutthroat world of the Olympics, it took a real lobbying effort to preserve these dinosaurs while seeing the exciting Tornado tossed from the Games.

PSE/Laser announced that the uninspiring SB3 was coming to the US in 2007 with much fanfare, including a big dollar print advertising blitz that included a blatant misstatement of the construction of the boat. Potential customers received lackluster service from the bored Laser reps at a handful of boat shows, as well as terrible follow-up afterwards, while PSE announced a breakthrough price of $40,000 – easily more than almost any other similarly sized sportboat, all of which are better-built and higher-tech.

We embrace Quantum's attitude and their service, which overall is far ahead of the sailmaking curve. Q sailmakers are talkers, and they seem happy to share their experience with us here at SA, which certainly wins them brownie points. They also continue to spend money growing their markets in both one-design and handicap racing, and have seen some real success in 2007 in the US and down under. We hear constant rumors of financial difficulty, so let's hope that Quantum can get past it and keep making fast sails.

Doyle Sails keeps at it, and gives some of the best service to sailors in less glamorous classes while dominating many of those classes. While they seem to lack the ability to get to the top levels of the sport, they've got their niches carved out, and that's important too.

Sobstad is a perennial here, and as much fun as tempting as it is to give it to them every time, we like Banks Sails for doing nothing of any note whatsoever. Oh sure, they no doubt have some happy customers, but their technology looks very dated, and it would seem the sailmaking world has well and truly moved on, and they haven't. Amazing to see a once prominent company fade away...

Can you believe that the Melges 24 is 15 years old? We can't – the design still looks sexy and fresh, the Class and builder continue to make all the right moves, and you simply cannot find another race boat that holds its value like a Melges 24. Every year, attendance at major events grows, and crucially, the crews of 24s include a lot of girls and a lot of young sailors, as well as the fun times that go with both. The boys from Zenda continue to pump out boats, and despite the fact that these “family-friendly” cheeseballs from Wisconsin pretend that SA doesn't exist, they have built a hell of a boat and a hell of a class. With the Devoti yard building good boats and North Shore now cranking them out in Eastern Australia, the worldwide future of the class is indeed rosy. There are sporties that are plenty faster, and there are sporties that are plenty cheaper, but if you're looking for a hot ride AND seriously large, competitive fleets, this one is the only one.

This comes from our personal experience: the Flying Tiger 10M is truly a terrific boat. Quick, easy to sail, rewarding and a ton of fun to sail, the boat is fast in almost all conditions, has a great layout and strikes a nice balance between being competitive and not too demanding.

Despite small, persistent build issues, the FT-10 class is growing like mad, with fleets popping up all over the world. Unlike the hot Melges 32 class, the Tiger has largely been drawing its sailors from the ranks of 4-knot shitbox sailors, and the introduction of so many sailors to the world of high-performance planing yachts is what we like the most about the FT-10 class.

The Laser SB3 is slow, heavy, and were it not for aggressive marketing and a weak field of comparative boats in the UK and Ireland, it never would have taken off. In our eyes, something that is a clear step backward in design is never a good thing, and the SB3's low-tech construction and build issues firmly prove that point. The boat actually comes from the molds with the keel totally crooked, and it took the class and builder more than two years to decide to allow owners to fix it, and even longer to decide to fix the molds.

The Longtze Premier is a bit bizarre looking, and it doesn't seem to have the legs that its numbers suggest. Two early boats showed up in Hong Kong to race the Asian Sportboat Champs, and both boats had constant breakages, needing to be towed back to port. With boats shipping to Europe now, it will be interesting to see how they hold up.

Long in the tooth and still just as ugly as it ever was, the Farr 40 wins praises from everyone who sails it. Despite the availability of very good designs both below it (Melges 32) and above it (GP42, TP52), the freeboard-rich Farr continues to attract the most talented racers along with the best owner-drivers in the game.

Big questions loomed over the future of the Volvo Extreme 40's as the world's attention faded from the VOR, yet keen owners continued to buy and race these insanely fast catamarans, and savvy Class organizers created races that stopped traffic everywhere they went. Rebadged as the iShares Cup, the spectator-friendly racing was an easier sell to sponsors, who were guaranteed exposure along the sidewalks of some of the neatest waterfront venues in the world.

The NYYC went to the trouble of creating a design contest for a new one-design racer/cruiser to be called the NYYC 42, and they managed to pick the heaviest, slowest boat they could. Too heavily loaded to make an easy-to-handle cruiser and too slow to be an exciting raceboat, the sole positive to the boat may be the elitist notion that “Swan” carries for the blue-blazer crowd at Harbour Court. Despite being a Swan, the CS42 manages to look more like a Beneteau than a luxury cruiser/racer, and reports we've received from owners and boat managers in the class indicate that the build quality is less than Swan-like. Well, at least it's incredibly expensive.

BMW/Oracle's USA 98 was a mess from the beginning. The team's first limp shot across the bow of the other teams was the silly bowsprit, and while speculation ran rampant about the mast-forward position and the possibility of some real innovation below the waterline, reality came knocking. It showed the boat to be low, slow, and as maneuverable as a dumptruck - probably not the best thing for a match race.

Only the biggest asshat can rise to the level of total fuckery embodied by this award's namesake, but Ernesto Bertarelli has proven that he's up to the task. After a deserved win in a surprisingly competitive America's Cup, Ernesto's downward spiral would make a heroin junkie proud. His blatant attempt to turn the AC into his own little fiefdom was bad enough, but his antics and attitude since being busted by “Larry the Enforcer” are more like that of a 7-year old child than the a billionaire businessman. He's shown that he's no businessman – he's just a spoiled brat, and he isn't getting his way this time.

Dishonorable Mention:

While A. Robert Towbin, the owner of the 94' Fife ketch Sumurun, doesn't even land in the same zip code as Bertarelli on 2007's douchebaggery scale, this fucktard gets a mention. Dishonorable, that is.

I don't know if we've ever awarded this category to any site but our own, but then again, there's no reason to look elsewhere for the Best Sailing Site in the world. We're the biggest, the baddest, and the most honest, and that's what keeps sailors addicted to this place like crack whores. Our badass community keeps coming up with the best content anywhere, we've pioneered the coolest live sailing event coverage ever, and our advertisers all have something worthwhile to sell. We rock and you all know it.

There aren't any other real sailing websites worth mentioning at all, though there are some blogs (we hate that word) that we follow from time to time. Pierre over at Valencia Sailing had the best and most up-to-date info coming out of Valencia during 2007, and even now, with all the lights off, he still seems to keep coming up with enough good scoops and exclusive photos to keep his readers interested and his sponsors happy. We also get a kick out of the obnoxious Rule 69 Blog, even though we think it should be renamed “” [even more poignant now that editor Magnus Wheatley has thrown in the towel].

The number of sailing sites continues to grow, yet somehow they all manage to suck in one major way or another, so the SA award has to go to every single site that is filled with blinking and scrolling ads, text and pics crammed into every corner of the page, stupid pop-ups and uninhabited forums. Sure, we know that no one is reading your site since they can get everything they need from Sailing Anarchy, but you make sailors look stupid with your crappy web design and execution.

Dishonorable mention:

XS Racing is visually much cleaner than most, as you'd expect from a total rip-off of SA. At least they didn't name their company with something unoriginal and completely played like Extreme - oh, wait a second...