Thanks John. That's consistent with what I've heard also, admittedly from not quite the top, but close to it.
I've had a number of lengthy email exchanges with Leslie Keller (whose willingness to discuss the issue I greatly appreciate) and I got a little more information that I find quite revealing. As you point out, the delegates knew going in that they had to secure the keelboat, but the reason is apparently slightly more complex than just the belief that keelboats are better positioned to win a medal. What I have been told very explicitly is that the Olympic Sailing Committee believed that keelboat sailors would be able to generate more donations than the multihull sailors and that those extra funds would allow the team to be better prepared for the Games and therefore have a better chance of winning a medal. And this in turn would ultimately mean more money from the USOC.
I can think of a number of good reasons why the actions of US Sailing's delegates were wrong. But this one I find astounding because it shows just how much of a disadvantage the multihull had before the process ever started. It had far less to do with how competitive a multihull team may be against the best in the world than we might have imagined. It actually depends on being able to dominate keelboats in fund-raising. And I don't understand how that could ever happen without multihull sailing being more or less a dominant faction in the greater sailing world - which is never going to happen.
If this is the way things are, it casts in a slightly different light the debate over infiltration vs separation. It seems that by US Sailing's own admission, on the Olympic issue at least, the odds are stacked so heavily against us that we would need to virtually take over the sport in order to get fair treatment.
