Hi Sam and welcome to the forum.
The open cockpit rule I think is mainly a safety thing for yachts sailing on beaches to allow quick escape if the yacht goes into the water.
Many of the land sailors/dirt boaters over there seem to be ignoring class rules and just building really hot yachts which is great.
The white yacht in the vid is certainly not a class 5 as it has a foil mast. It may be a class 2 or 3 yacht. Two things you are blessed with in the U.S. are plenty of dry lakes and lakes that freeze over in winter.
We only have a few dry lakes here and not many more suitable beaches which would have to be one of the reasons for the rise in popularity of the Mini Yachts here. They allow people to sail in much smaller areas such as car parks etc.
Unless you really want to race in official classes I suggest you asses what kind of areas you are going to be sailing on the most and buy or build a yacht to suit.
Some of the Mini yachts are reaching towards class 5 performance lately. The newly adopted FISLY Mini Yacht rule allows a lot of scope especially if you are a home builder.
One such Mini Yacht is the Lake Lefroy Mini Yacht, plans for which are freely downloadable from this web site. Several of your compatriots are building them as we speak.
Have a good click around the forum and you will find just about every question you might have is answered.
If you decide to build a yacht, make sure you post pics of the build or we will send one of our emus over there to kick your outhouse down.
Cheers Cisco
