2007 Pan Am Games in Brazil. Home team had some questionably class legal mods to their boat (old style mast head on Comptip, corner castings moved out on crossbars and re-riveted to increase beam). Talk to Bob M. - he was there and filed the protest that eventually had the Brazilians tossed out - they would have won the event. Boos and trash thrown at competitors and officials at the prize-giving ceremony.

It's the reason we have the "maximum sail hoist diagrams" in the Hobie Class Rules now.

Mark, still I'm having trouble figuring out how it could be Bad for Multihulls.

Let me answer that.

If an active F16 boat were selected, I think it would kill the F16 Class. All the money would go the Olympic boat. All the hot sailors would move to the Olympic boat, with mixed teams. Since the F16 Class is small, I think the selected boat would move to one design events and the F16 Class would end up being largely ignored, Like the B-Class. Loss of our most promising new class is a high price.

Let me answer that.

If an active F16 were selected, I think it would kill the Class. All the money would go the Olympic boat. All the hot sailors would move to the Olympic boat, with mixed teams. Since the F16 Class is small, I think the selected boat would move to one design events and the F16 Class would end up being largely ignored, Like the B-Class. Loss of our most promising new class is a high price.

If an active F18 were selected, it’s harder to tell, F18 is different. It’s big and F18’s strengths are being able to feed new sailors, practice and tune-up at big events with lots of hot competition. The problem is they would have separate powerful class inside F18. The Olympic boat has mixed crews and it will probably be locked into a ridged no development one design. The Olympic Class boat will fall behind and the mixed crew will probably not be representative of the regular sailors so there may be pressure to change the F18 rules. Olympic sailors and wannabes could end up as a large percentage of the active voting members. I bring this up because I think the Tiger has been positioned to be a candidate. I think the F18 Fleet could end up being damaged and we can't afford having our strongest class damaged just to have a boat in the Olympics .

What do I think the best choice would be:

A modified Tornado, with strict rules concerning platform, standing rigging, mast, and spin pole. Allow development in running rigging and foils. Sails for the Olympics would be from a single supplier, delivered to the Olympics. It's already lost to us. I speak as owner of Tornado US782. It can work for mixed crew as a one design. One of my favorite memories was a course with a reach. The F18’s were in front at A mark, double trapped and traveled out to the footstrap to hold it down. . Me with just a girl on the wire going , shall we pass to windward or leeward? And forget the A-C course, if you are going to sail cats, bring back the reach and put the reach leg were the spectators can see it.

H16- it fits the mixed crew and would fit in with the other Olympic boats. Sail and ABC course and pitch poles would add spectator interest.

New design for mixed crew and I think Vanguard with 3 boats in the Olympics, has an edge here

I totally remember that situation (and am aware that it was the catalyst for the rule change).

In my mind, that was more of a "chartered boat" format, since the boats were used and not rotated. Sounds like this guy got to pick/bring his own boat and keep it for the whole event. At all of the "provided boat" events that I've been associated with, the boats are ALWAYS selected/assigned by lottery, and usually rotated during the event.

Anyone know who the officials were? While trash-throwing is extremely weak on the part of the fans, I would say this looks bad on a resume. They should have rotated the boats, at least then the jury could have done something better to fix the problem (such as throw out all results for that boat, or something).

Of course, starting with ensuring all of the boats were equal prior to the start would have been the logical first step (although they may have tried and missed these somewhat subtle changes). As this event clearly shows, there are unique issues with using USED provided boats, and even more reason to rotate.

Mike

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....

Should I yell? The boats at the PanAms referenced, and for the next PanAms, are not provided. It is a BYOB event.