With the US Sailing presence at Tradewinds, any talk about any US racers participating in the Mixed Multihull Evaluation in Santander, Spain this upcoming March? Applications are due to ISAF by the 20th and require US Sailing's (MNA) endorsement.

ISAF Evaluation Invitation

Out-of-pocket expense to get there and accommodations (maybe) for a week.

Equipment applications are also due Friday.

The F16's results at Tradewinds should silence any skeptics about a mixed multihull event!

Lots of fast women drivers and crews out there in plenty of wind!

Jeez, I wasn't even thinking about that! Top two drivers were girls!

There is at least one US team vying for a slot.

Wow, and the world didn't come to an end? Maybe the Mayans are right, and we have another 11 months after all...

Mike

I read the invitation as for a single sailor.

They will be testing both the skiffs and mixed multihull.

I would think that Pease Glasser would be a superb choice from the USA and the International perspective
.

Pease says she doesn't want to go.

If the event was a couple weeks earlier, I would try to stop on my way back from Singapore. I really hope we can get some American sailors there, both for the sake of the skiff and the cat selection.

Would be really cool to try all the different boats!

I think you miss the point at least as far as I see it.

When woman's track is required to have a man anchor the 4x100 relay, or a woman do the same on the men's squad then forcing multihulls to do what they're doing might make sense. It should be open to whoever qualifies and hopefully that's done on a level playing field. Frankly if I were a woman I would be pissed that I couldn't crew with another woman.

As the father of two daughters I get a bit steamed when I hear they need a man to compete in this world.

What's being offered here is not the best of the best. It's social engineering and while it might be entertaining it's not the Olympics.

Uhhh, yes it is, Mike. Honest. You can look it up.

Plenty of opportunity for your girls out there. And, if you'll dig a little, you'll find that the mixed multihull in 2016 is the path to a women's multihull in 2020. Without it, there would still be women's sailing options, but not on a cat at the Olympics. Ever.

Is there any evidence from ISAF that they have the slightest intention to grow the multihull from the current mixed discipline to 2 events in 2020?

I can't find it and to be honest, it seems to exist only in the heads of some

I have mixed feelings about this issue (pun intended.) What are the choices? I think male only or female only would be wrong, unless you have two "separate but equal" events. As I understand the history, open classes were effectively the same as "male," so that's out. So we are left with "open with minimum of one female" or "mixed." The former would be the more sexist of the two.

Mike, how would you like it set up? I expect you would want something that gives your daughters a chance to compete without relegating them to second class, or maybe you think that women sailors are inherently inferior and so they need their own race? (Yes, I realize that this is a loaded question, feel free to ignore it.)

In any case, the real question isn't "what's most fair," but rather what is good for sailing as a sport, and biasing the Olympics to encourage woman involvement is, I think, a very good thing.

You know as well as any how it works. There is a renewed discussion every quad. At present, there are ISAF committee members and MNA representatives that are very much on-board with this longer-range plan. Coming up with that plan was one of the first things done when we lost the last event.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step"

More like a thousand butt's kissed.

So does that mean there will be mixed and womens in 2020, but no open/mens?

I think there is a broad consensus that Olympic sailing is the pinnacle of dinghy/small boat sailing. Now you have to define the pinnacle of what... a pyramid, a column, or a handful of devoted athletes.?

Two multihull medals will flounder when the fact is that few woman raced multi's world wide at the international level.

So, the future of a Men's event is based entirely on generating enough demand from woman sailors for a Multihull medal.

Obviously, we don't have much of a pyramid of woman racing multihulls right now.. ... So... how you generate demand for an Olympic Mulithull and how many countries MNA's will step up and train woman is a critical issue. This could be a problem and worse... it is compounded when these same MNA's must step up and train woman for woman's skiff's at the same time.

The assumption is that when you offer the medals... they will come.

IMO.... men's multihull in 2020 is mostly aspirational..

I wonder the about the number of woman raced multi's world wide at the international level vs the number of women who match race keel boats.
Was there a pyramid of women keel boat match racing?

I've written a few responses to this comment but thought better of hitting the submit key. (as you should have)

Sufficient to say your ignorance is deafening.

Ding DING DING ... a killer observation!

NO

and both the discipline (match) AND the boat (Elliot) AND the type (Keelboat) were tossed for 2016(rejected by the majority of MNA's because they did not want to play)

The Olympic pinnacle rested on a handful of athletes (with killer political skills)... not even a thin reed of grass roots support.

The take home message should be.... There is a danger in putting the cart before the horse.