One design boats are all the same right? One Laser4000 is the same as another, one Firefly the twin of all the rest... Exactly!!! One of the biggest differences between old boats and new boats is overall weight - which you read time and time again that you should check when you buy second-hand to ensure the hull is on the minimum allowed ...
Why the big fuss man???

OK, check this out, one extra Kg of mass in the hull of a 16foot boat means that the driving force of the sails have to move an extra TONNE of water out of the way over a 2.5 nautical mile course... Don't believe that do you... OK... Here's the science (should have got Jennifer Aniston to say that, she does it better than me!!!)

The err, Science...Sailing a distance of 1km in a 5metre boat is 200 boat lengths, agreed... Good.
Now, for every boatlength, the boat displaces it's weight (the very application of displacement in fact...) and has to PUSH that water away, either down if the boat is planing, or to the sides if it is not - in fact it gets pushed in both directions.
So if the boat weighs in one kg over, that extra kg of water has to be shifted out of the way every boatlength you move through the water.

So for every 1km, the boat has to push an extra 200kg of water out of the way, and therefore over a 5km course (just about 2.5nm) the boat has had to move an extra tonne of water.

Now that is just a waste of effort. Energy wasted... It is more painfully obvious in light breeze as every ounce of effort from the sails is needed to accelerate the boat.

Sold? OK, How to reduce the weight of your ship - and without spending an absolute arm and a leg would be nice!

1. Rinse all buoyancy tanks and internal areas with fresh water. Rinse, purge, rinse again. Then allow to dry.

2. Drying techniques...
a. Easiest of all, get the boat out in the sunshine
b. Get it in the garage with a good safe heater running and shut all the doors
c. String of 60watt lightbulbs on a long flex - say about 6 to 10 fittings neatly wired together to a single plug. – Takes an hour or two to make and costs about £20. Thread them through the boat on a piece of line and turn them on - move them around regularly...
(Take a look at the boat in the dark too to see if there are any cracks or crazing in the gelcoat)
d. Hair dryer in one end, hoover in the other - turn them both on (my mum went MAD when I did this so watch it!!!)

3. Remove old fittings - and don't replace them if you don't use them anymore! Get imaginitive. Do you need shackles everywhere or can you do what the skiffs (from 12 to 60feet!) do and replace them with spectra strops. How about the transom flaps - do they work or can you tape them over instead... Try and think safety too tho'!

4. Cut down rope tails to the shortest you can get away with. Soggy sheets and control lines weigh a ton...

Other techniques require a lot of time (heavy sanding and careful painting) or money (extensive modifications, new fittings, foils etc) but these few will get you on the right track to start with.

And if you want to spend a few quid, my dad used to say that the best way to keep the weight of the boat down was to buy a really good cover for it... I think that's good advice too...