Yes boat development, (Sail shape,) Zucolli built the custom mains for many Olympic programs on their dime and turned that knowledge into F18 sails. Technique... Wild thing for down wind sailing (mitch booth innovated this one). Rigging, snuffers of today come about because the T class sailors tried everything to get an edge.... Otherwise... you could still have end pole snuffers....

The point is... the T class rules were loose enough (by design) and the drive to win promoted innovation using all of the Olympic funding dollars. These guys spent the money first. Many cat classes adopted these innovations after they were proven.

There was a cost to this as well.. You could turn all of this activity around and claim it was cheating or crossing the line (mast issues, Sail material issues, upwind spin sail for China Olympics). It was an instructive period for ISAF. The T class was locking down many of the rules for years and generating lots of upset in the class as it happened but they really locked the rules down to eliminate all of this activity after they were booted.

What will the next Olympic Class do.... It is unlikely to take the same path as the Tornado.... But, If you lock up the Olympic Class into a strict one design... you stop all of this tweaking activity.

Is this a good thing for Cat Racing or not? You Nacra 20 sailors locked down your mainsail with the SMOD... Good move or not? Lasers do not innovate with their sail.... Good for the sport or not.

I assert that in the past, the Olympic multihull led. In the future, the Olympic Multihull looks like it will reflect a point in time of development and be frozen by the rules. The boat will be a boring non issue (unless it falls apart)... The class interest will depend only on the competition and the medal every 4 years.

If Mixed Olympic Multihulls becomes a narrow competition practiced by 20 countries with a couple of teams each trying for 18 slots with sailors on small SMOD boats... will we pay attention?.... My worry is that people will loose interest in the Olympic Multihull Competition with Mixed and with No development allowed.

For Example.... How many people pay attention to the Pan AM games... Why? Is it a big deal for US Hobie 16 sailors... Hell... I remember a couple of Rehobath SC weekend regattas where the H16 winner was the Pan Am rep. It did not seem that big of a deal to me.

Paul Pascoe is absolutely correct... We have some very important choices to make and we should be clear on the potential impact. What should be the pinnacle of the sport...
could slip into irrelevance if we screw this up.