To the contrary, I have quite a bit of experience in light stuff and chop.
I usually sail light (about 123kg) and now with my daughter 105, but I have also raced in the 160 range with no difference in finish position relative to normal.
If there is chop or especially in gusty conditions, the more weight the faster and harder you can drive the boat. Once you both hit the trap and 1 team has to depower, light weight does not mean squat. The light team has to work twice as hard to keep pace. This is downwind too, the boat is a lot better behaved and easier to drive with added weight.

My point was even with swings of 60 kg we are talking a “potential” of at most a second or 2. When I win in light stuff or lose in big stuff it is because I got beat, not because of my weight. Sailing is a big mental thing and light stuff especially. I would be willing to bet the heavy team who got their butt kicked in the light stuff was sitting still and bitching the whole time about being too heavy, where the light team was moving around and driving the boat.

Macca, you're talking about the Olympics, but by inference carrying over to represent a whole class,

By your posts you seem to be promoting a boat choice based on some team weight, and that is as dumb as US sail and the other NOAs who tried to base their decision on medal count and look where that got us?

We are all talking about the Olympics here, its actually the thread topic...

if we don't take the competitive team weight into account when considering a suitable boat for the games then we could end up with a situation that develops teams on the extreme end of the weight scale. That isn't good for the sport at all. Nobody wants to see emaciated teams sailing on a hobie 14 turbo, nor do we want to see 2 fat dudes try to sail an Extreme 40 (that could be funny though..)

And if you can state that your F16 is only affected by 1-2 seconds with a 60kg weight difference is just silly. We know from a lot of straight line testing and crew swapping (with top level teams) that weight does make a difference to boat speed. And that is with a whole lot less difference than 60kgs between teams!

Matt, seriously when was the last time you sailed at 160 kg? You act like you sail at 160kg all time, when in reality you don't sail anywhere near that heavy, ever.

Besides the one time in the states you sailed that heavy was the Mug Race which was 4 years ago and it was a drifter! Plus it was a pursuit race and your rating was nowhere near what it is now.

Come on Matt pull back the weight doesn't matter hype just a little bit.

I've raced the Viper at 385lbs, 175kgs, so long as there was wind we weren't punished too badly by our weight. When the wind was up, we were untouchable going to weather, and not too bad off downwind.

I just like to bring up these events every now and again to keep people honest. As JW has mentioned (several times), there are lots of "restrictions" and "requirements" being floated here that just aren't accurate; rather, they are personal preferences of the posters (some may be the preferences of a majority of people on this forum, but they are still not IOC requirements).

Ice Dancing (MIXED is OK)
Curling (OLD and/or FAT is OK)
Laser Sailing (OLD EQUIPMENT is OK)

Mike

Hey, I can be the sole voice of counter reason.

My point is weight plays a role, but it is way overblown.

Min on a H16 is more critical. Weight on a fat hull spin boat is not nearly so much and for the majority of us non-olympians skill and luck outplays the effect of weight.

Yes I sail most events with Gina. I did the floater Mug with Dan, but a couple of others too. I did an SCCA local on the Blade with my friend Jeff who goes about 215 , You and kathy were there and I finished right about normal. I have done several GYC locals with Seth.

My experience sailing heavy is much less than light, but i can vouch that the boat drives easier with a little more weight, and this becomes even more true as the conditions get choppy or gusty.

Mark,

The F16 class has no power to enforce anything outside of its own events (or ones sanctioned by this class). It can not prevent boat owners from getting a separate measurement and rating and submitting that at open events (= not organised under the F16 class banner).

That is a fact of life that all Formula classes including the F18's and A's have to live with. I for one know of several Tigers that race of a different rating as the F18's. Some F18's forget to use the small suit of sails when participating in open events. For some reason nobody seems to care there, but when some Viper owner does it ... ... then the sky is falling.

You are smart enough to realize that you are asking the impossible in your earlier posting.

Wouter

Weight is very important for downhill skiing as well but no-one is campaining for 20 foot skis with corrector weights that favour 7 foot high competitors either, are they?

The event is downhill skiing and the choice of equipment is open; if you are not of the right make-up then tough luck and do something else. (by the way, are they using SMOD skis with corrector weights there ?)

So explain to me again why the equipment should actively favour "all male lardy teams" instead of lighter mixed crews ? Don't they have a right to be represented at the big O. ? Or is it that some builder doesn't have a viable boat in that particular segment ?

Life is hard and not always fair; period.

All your other spinning is just that, spinning. Whether the Tornado boat is weight sensitive or not has absolutely no predictive power with respect to the F16's. They are noticeably different designs with different overall behaviour. They don't even feel the same when sailing either of them. The experience with the F16's is however clear: the optimal weight for them is NOT 120 kg or less, no matter how many times you keep peddling that misconception.

But I'm sure you won't be deterred by this in anyway. Sure enough you are brewing on another angle to stick it to the short hulled guys; truth be damned !

Now can we get back to getting a multi back into the O. instead of restating the F20C (or F17) advertisement brochure over and over again ? Or stacking the set of requirements to favour either of these as the selection ?

Like I said earlier; if the H16 is our best ticket then by God I'll support it wholeheartedly (and that boat truly is weight sensitive = joke !). Of course the same should apply for other persons when for example the Viper is selected or, God forbid, the (untested) F20C.

Lets work together and try to work together as a scene and get that multi slot back !

Thanks,

Wouter

Wouter, you make it too easy!!!

There is a mens and womens division for downhill ski races, and its not because women's breasts give them an unfair advantage.....

To expand on your ski related example, Ski jumping has the following rule:-

"Ski jumpers below the minimum safe body mass index are penalized with a shorter maximum ski length, reducing the aerodynamic lift they can achieve. These rules have been credited with stopping the most severe cases of underweight athletes"

mmmm, thats citing a clear advantage to a weight based competitor.....

Next you will be telling me that you can be competitive at a top level on an F16 with a weight range of 120kg up to 200kg.....

I believe the Europe dinghy was replaced by the laser radial for women... What a downgrade that was... The Europe looked like a proper high tech boat with great foils, well made, with appropriate sail controls etc etc. I loved the way they moved through the water.

If memory serves... the ISAF wanted a POPULAR single hander... ergo the laser.

This fact makes your point. ISAF does not place a premium on a high performance boat for a particular event.

In fact... they can compromise quite a bit on performance to get mass appeal or familiarity to the world community.

I personally think the Olympic boats should be extremely high performance to make the work the sailor puts into the sport developing just a bit better sailing skill pay off with gold... ISAF and other groups would be OK if it's just a grunt contest or even a luck of the race contest when using lesser tech equipment.

Bottom line... I am very worried that the Olympic ideals that I value will be last on the list of priorities in deciding events and boats. ... But if the IOC says... bye bye to the ISAF... It will be a non issue.

Time will tell

Your first two examples are rubbish. They are part of the Winter Olympics, not the Summer ones. The two don't have the same aim in term of audience: there is not a lot of winter sport in muslim countries...

Like I said in my earlier posting :

"Sure enough you are brewing on another angle to stick it to the short hulled guys; truth be damned !"

Wouter

I love how any discussion with Macca involved do end up in a rant about weight.

I there a psy in the room? I'm sure we could do a quick analysis of Macca's psyche to figure out which event in his youth did trigger his obsession about minimum weight.

Im not the only one who understands that weights are an important part of the equation when it comes to performance at a high level. If it made no difference then why do we have a Laser and a Finn class???
Sailjuice weight analysis

Weight is always an important issue in every Olympic sailing class. For someone who has never competed at this level it may be hard to believe but none the less it is a big issue.

&**** things up for sailing, and I will cheer when sailing is removed from the Olympic stage. Not because I don`t want to see sailing as an Olympic sport (I do), but because it will be the catalyst that gets all sailors behind the very necessary action of removing ISAF as the governing body of our sport.

Steve, that has to be the best post here and I agree with you completly, earlier John suggested i have a limited view, ask yourself who got it wrong in the first place, not me it was the ISAF, who canned the cats in the olympics, not me it was the ISAF, is a mixed event going to provide the greatest possible audience in the next games? definately not, the f16 and h16 are no doubt popular classes but to the general public, are these classes what they want to see, remembering the laser is the most popular class alive and as i said before it is also on the condemmed list of events from the IOC. As for the fact that the event must be chosen first is total bullocks, why select an event not knowing if you have a sutiable vessel to carry that event, i never heard so much rubbish..common sense would state that first choose a cat that will do the most to lift olympic sailing to attract the general public then choose who you want to sail it. It is the boat, how it looks, how it performs, how spetacular it is, how fast it goes, the country it represents, etc, what the general viewer looks at first, last is the persons that are sailing it, because if the crew on it isnt in the top 3 leaders from your country then they are from another country, so therefore it will be the vessel that keeps audience interested, not sailers from some other country. Vessel comes first event comes after, get it right for once!

Its nice that you feel that way, but you understand that isn't what is going to happen, right?

Right

Some good common sense is being posted. But, as I keep saying, we have a system in place [Event committee THEN Equipment Committee] and we have to learn to manipulate it in our favour.

Maybe in years to come we will have the 'Nike size 12 100m final' or the 'Janousek coxed fours' . That commercial heaven will have to wait -for now its about the athletes!