Doesn't have anything to do with all those pros and cons. Apparently, the problem is the need for "gender equity" in the Olympic sailing events, in order to please the IOC.

Supposedly, ISAF (on behalf of sailing) has not been meeting the IOC gender equity standards.

A problem is the events that are considered "Open," meaning open to both men and women. But "Open" has been a euphemism for "male." As the US Sailing President said, open events just do not work as far as getting more women into the Olympics.

Unfortunately, our multihull event class is "Open." So at some point if we want to keep multihulls in the Olympics, we are going to have to figure out a way to get more women into the multihull event(s).

This could require a change of equipment. Or an addition to the multihull equipment. For instance, make the Tornado all male and have another multihull that is all female.

Therefore, we should be thinking about all this long before they drop the bombshell that either multihulls have been eliminated from the Olympic sailing events or that sailing has been eliminated from the Olympics, period.

I don't know how anybody can continue thinking that the status quo will be maintained after the recent decision by US Sailing to submit an event list that excludes the multihull for 2012.

Think GENDER EQUITY! Equal numbers of men and women. US Sailing's approach is to submit events that have separate men's events and women's events. According to Jim Capron, US Sailing would support mixed teams (male-female), but there is little international support for that.

We can't just feel self-satisfied because we have sent hundreds of complaints to the United States Olympic Committee and to people at US Sailing about the omission of the multihull. We have to think ahead.

For instance, the US Sailing people keep saying that it is too early to talk about equipment for 2012 -- that the equipment debate is a year and a half away.

However, at the ISAF mid-year meeting in May they not only take submission lists from the countries for the events they want to see in the Olympics -- they also accept submissions from boat classes for events in which those classes would like to be accepted as equipment.

So it is not a year and a half away. It is next month when the lobbying begins.

Complacency is going to either kill the multihull event or kill sailing in the Olympics altogether. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />