initially designs were heavy displacement, with a fine, often v shaped stern as well as a fine bow. these were powerful boats for sailing to windward, but had limited performance offwind as well as often having an alarming tendency to broach - designers included sparkman & stephens and dick carter. then ron holland's quarter-tonner "eygthene" began the next phase of increasingly lightweight boats with fuller sterns giving more of a wedge shape, and a change from masthead rig to a fractional rig. this dinghy influence gave much faster performance reaching and downwind, and although windward performance was not as good, it improved as the designs developed. the ultimate in this stage was the various lightweight centerboard designs with internal ballast, but these were not sufficiently seaworthy for offshore racing and so were penalised so heavily that they were effectively banned. designs then moved to a more moderate displacement, and as race courses moved from offshore racing with plenty of reaching towards windward/leeward round the cans, racing designs became narrower and less powerful but more easily driven.