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| Here, at the Richmond Yacht Club, on San Francisco Bay, we are used to seeing "high-tech" El Toro's with race rigging, state-of-the-art sails, and floatation tanks. These boats are often referred to as "self-rescue" El Toros or "Floaters". However, in much of the rest of the world, the concept of El Toros that can float and self-rescue is unknown, so here are some samples! The standard wooden El Toro, when capsized and then righted, will come up with the hull full of water over the gunwales- very, very difficult, if not impossible, to continue on sailing with out outside help. Tanked, "self-rescue" El Toros are safer, more convenient, and get you back racing much faster... with tanks in the right places, an El Toro can be righted and boarded, by a person in the water, then sailed away. You will need to do some bailing, but you can continue racing with out disqualification. We encourage all of our Junior El Toro sailors, at RYC, to purchase El Toros with added floatation tanks. Most of the fastest Junior and Adult El Toro sailors are winning races in fiberglass, "self-rescue" El Toros these days. Wooden boats can be tanked too, but they tend to be on the heavy side for racing. Here are all the samples of the different tanking schemes that I could find one day at the RYC Junior Sailing Clinic. I believe that a couple of these hull types might not be strictly legal by the Class Rules, but they are all included to show examples and foster future design ideas. Please feel free to send me some more examples if you have them! Click on thumbnail to see full picture Wooden boats with tanks
Fiberglass boats with tanks from molds
Unusual tank styles
Alternative to tanks
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