This year's lineup of 17 entries promises to be a good one, especially from my point of view, because I see only two boats that might get me really wet, and there's no way in the world that I'm going to set foot on either one with the aforementioned judge. The Bug from Laser Performance is an 8'5" rotomolded boat designed for beginning sailors, and the RS Tera is a 9'5" planing dinghy. Other than those two, we're mostly looking at larger crossover designs, such as the Archambault 35, Archambault 40, Dufour Performance 40+, Summit King 40, Finngulf 43, X-34, Santa Cruz 37, Sunfast 3200, Grand Soleil 43, and Bavaria 38. Thrown into the mix are some more high-performance designs, such as the Melges 20, the M 65 (an Open-Class Mini), the BC 27, Andrews 28, and the Summit MD 35.

Our three judges, tailed by me to make sure they don't escape into the nearest beer tent, especially on Sunday when the football's on, will walk the docks at the U.S. Sailboat Show in Annapolis this weekend and inspect each boat dockside, digging into the interior, looking at fit-and-finish, and talking to the designers or factory reps. From Tuesday through Friday, we'll take to the waters of the Chesapeake and sail each boat thoroughly, trying in an hour-and-a-half to get a feel for the boat and its performance. It may not sound like a long time, but if the breeze cooperates, it's plenty of time to sail upwind and down, tack and jibe, and even pull a few race maneuvers, such as a 720 and a practice start. Each evening the judges will discuss the boats they sailed that day, and I'll take notes. On Friday, they'll sit down for a longer session, talk through the numbers and how each judge feels about each boat, and come up with an overall winner as well as category winners. Next Saturday, we'll all fly home and try to convince our significant others how hard we've been working all week.

Look for the announcement of our 2009 winners online in mid-December, and in the January issue of SW. Meanwhile, specifications and photos of the BOTY class of 2009 are available here.