Originally Posted by ACE11
A common thread running through all olympic sports is that they use the best and most advanced equipment. Can you imagine Tiger Woods or Roger Federer using clubs or racquets from the 1960's or 1970's. We have been criticising the decision to drop multis as a step away from spectacular performance sailing and a move to dreary outdated slugs. Anything other than choosing a modern, fast and challenging boat would be a retrograde step. This is supposed to be the pinnacle of sailing being showcased to the world. I don't buy the argument that it has to be a boat currently sailed in a lot of countries and cheaply available. Buying a boat is a minor part of running an olympic campaign. Travel to major regattas, specialised training, loss of employment, accommodation etc are way more. Can you imagine top tennis players rejecting an advance in racquet technology because there are a lot of the old ones around the world and some countires may not be able to afford the new ones?

I say run a selection shootout and choose the fastest most spectacular boat that can be sailed effectively by the slated crew configuration.

I feel the same way as you do, but tennis isnt about to be dropped by the IOC, for this time round all we need is to attract more viewers, if that can be done using high tech then fine if it can be done using a popular laser style of multihull then we need to go that way, simply viewer numbers have to increase or we have nothing, high tech or not! Once we re-establish an interest in multihull sailing then we can promote the elite in modern high tech multis that will only ever be sailed in smaller numbers