Why have a multihull in the Olympics?

Without the Tornado being Olympic I think all you F18 sailors would still be trying to stuff the kite into a bag on the tramp at the bottom mark.... and manually tacking the jib...

Technology Most of the develpment that we have access to comes from the T class See Macca's examples

Expertise... those guys develop the new techniques... eg Wild thing... the stuff trickles down.

You need heroes or role models... Its a thrill to meet and compete against your country's best in a regatta that you attend.

Kids need to be inspired... the Olympic guys fill that role.

The top guys in your non olympic class have spent lots of time in the Tornado class.

Randy S, Jay G, Lars G, Pete M, Bob H, Pease G, now in A class
Greg and Jaques B, Nigel P, Matt S, F18's and N20's.

They set the standard and force you to raise your game.

Guys:

I think technology is developed more by supply and demand than by one race. Inventors see a nitch and try to fill it. If there is enough demand to make the product and enough buyers out there it will get made. You can have the best thing since sliced bread, BUT if know one wants it, it is useless. We just need to to continuie to bring in new sailors.

OK Off my soap box.

Doug

Agree with Mark on all of the points above. My motivation to do a 1988 program in Div. II sailboards and then Tornados from 1995 - 1999 was a statement made by Rod Davis (who is now the head Olympic sailing coach for New Zealand and an ACC coach) that you do an Olympic campaign to get REALLY REALLY REALLY good at sailing. If you put the time into it and see progress, this is the main benefit and if you can win the Trials and a medal, well it's icing on the cake.

The Tornado; it's a lovely boat and fantastic class. I hope more upcoming and talented US catamaran sailors will try the class at some point in their sailing careers. They won't regret it.

Bob Hodges
formerly USA 796

Wait...didn't we have snuffers long before the Tornado platform was updated?

Thank You Jake.

And self-tacking jibs are not exactly a new idea. They are pretty common on cruisng boats. Our old Irwin 37, which was already old when we got it in 1982, had a self-tacking jib in addition to the genoa.

And, as I recall, the original Nacra 6.0 had a self-tacking jib, back in the 1980's. Didn't work very well performancewise, so it was scuttled when the NA version came out.

If I'm not mistaken, Bill Roberts designed & used one (& patented it?) back in the early 80s SuperCat era.
Bill? You out there?

Olympic is the top level. It is a showcase. We need two not none. 14 foot with no trap will provide good entry level. and provide a cat medal possiblity in the under 40K mark. A 16K boat would soon have a lot of followers if an Olympic gold was possible.

Dinner party...

I am the Olympic Tornado gold medalist.

I am the F18 World champ.

I know what I'd rather say.

Does anyone else think the Olympics have to implode soon. only one year into setting the up london has DOUBLED its cost estimates.... I think you can get an Olympic gold in nose picking now.. maybe it is just a demonstration sport...but you know what I mean.

When it comes to Olympic champagnes, I would think the cost of the boat would be one of the smaller budget items.

Tiger Mike

When you consider how many smaller Olympic class mono's there are, it makes sence to have a boat that younger, less cashed up ppl could campaign for a medal. A 14ft uni rigged one person cat with a spi is IMHO the logical choice.

But then of course I'd say that.

Bern.

If the multihull were eliminated from the Olympics, what would change, if anything?

My youngest son has done 4 weekend junior cat training camps with a professional coach this winter on his Dragoon.
My eldest son has done 4 weekend youth training camps with a professional coach and a week and a half with the full GBR coaching teams, on his H16.
These opportunities are available to ANY GBR youth/junior cat team for a minimal cost. this is all heavily subsidised by Sport England/RYA etc because there is potential for a gold medal from these guys[and girls]in the future.

NO CAT OLYMPIC CLASS = no support for youth unless they sail a Monothingy = end of world!

Okay, I am going to repeat my initial questions, because I haven't really seen any good answers:

Why should we care whether or not there is a multihull in the Olympics?

We have had the Tornado in there since 1976, and what has it done for multihull sailing as a whole? Do more people sail multihulls because there is a multihull in the Olympics?

If the multihull were eliminated from the Olympics, what would change, if anything?

And I don't think technological

improvements

are really relevant to increasing overall interest in the sport, as far as the non-sailing public is concerned.

I guess a bigger question would be, how has SAILING in general benefited from being an Olympic sport? (Aside from getting sailing some occasional promo in the media.)

Having the T in the Olympics has given the sport an

Ultimate goal

which in turn gives new comers something to aim for in their dreams. In real measurable terms I gues sit has done little to increase the number of people sailing cats but it hasn't done it any harm either.

And as for the Snuffers being on F18's before the T did it.... Sorry but The F18 fleet followed the T's lead and it was the same for the self tacker.

With all due respect to those that have competed in, and won medals in the Olympics, I think it makes little if any difference to the growth of the sport.

I know about John and Charlie becuase they have gone three times I think, I know about Robbie because hes from Tampa, but I only heard about those guys after sailing cats for about 5 years.

Does it, or did it make any difference in my decision to sail, absolutely not. I cant say Ive ever heard of anyone starting to sail cats becuase of the Olympics.

So, on the local level I dont think it makes a bit of difference. However, I hope the Tornado does get included because I think its cool as hell that our best sailors get to compete at that level. I hope the Tornado class can keep it included.

In the USA, the non-sailing public immediately thinks of America's Cup as

their

connection to sailing, along the lines of the World Series or Superbowl. A high percentage would never know it was an Olympic sport, regardless of number of hulls.

Look at the home countries of this posts replies. I think US sailors can only wish the sport was as popular here as it is in AU and EU.

I didn't say F18...the I20 has had a snuffer for a long time; granted, it was an end-pole, but it was certainly a snuffer. The self-tackers have been around for a much longer time too. I remember a Taipan 4.9 in the 2001 Round the Island race (Pensacola, FL) with a mid-pole snuffer too.

I don't mean to start a pissing contest, the T has definitely pushed the refinement of these systems.

This Olympics with the venue predicted to have no winds will probably not do anything for multihull exposure. If we ever get a venue with decent winds and if TV discovers multis, it could really help the sport. If the general public can see T’s flying a hull racing, particularly young people, hey you never know.
Hey at least maybe when you tell someone that you had started working out for the upcoming season, the response wont be “What for? Don’t you just sit there on the boat?”

If TV would learn HOW to film cat sailing to make it as exciting to the viewer as it is to the sailor it might make it a more popular Olymipic event.

Brian, have you taken your AdventureTV helmet cam and spinpole cam stuff to the big networks that do Olympic TV? Yours is SO, SO, SO much better than their far off shots or all of that personal history non-sailing jabber they like to do.

It doesn't seem possible that cat sailing could be dull but I thought they did a good job of boring me last Olympics.

Hi Mary -

I think you're looking at thie upside-down. There should be a multihull in the Olympics because the Games should represent the sports enjoyed by the world. The events are intended to be a reflection of amateur sports competition world-wide. Multihull racing makes up a significant percentage of the overall small boat racing in the world - the events in the Games should reflect that. And our national organization had better get back in touch with that principle.

I am not sure the Olympics really qualify as

amateur

. True, the root of the word implies a love of the sport, but also implies something done

unskillfully

!

My understanding is that an Olympic campaign is full time, all consuming and requires an extremely high skill level. Perhaps I'm wrong.

No, I am not looking at it upside down. You are exactly right. The Olympics is a REFLECTION of the popularity of certain sports in the world. The Olympics do not CAUSE those sports to become popular. So if the sport is not in the Olympics, it will not particularly affect the success of the sport in terms of participation.

If you turn it upside down and put a sport in the Olympics when nobody is interested in that sport, do you think that the mere fact that it is in the Olympics is going to make it become a popular sport?

And, as I have asked, has having a multihull in the Olympics done anything to increase participation in multihull sailing? I don't think so.

And has having sailing in the Olympics increased participation in sailing in general? I don't think so.

Mary,

Please let me play devils advocate. How many non-sailors are out saying

ha! why have sailing anyway?..it's not a sport..it is for rich white men! Track/ Field...thats the tradition of the games anyway.

I don't feel that way....but I would bet there are many people out there who do feel this....

What say you?

Mary --

Just because you have never experienced the Olympics as a driving factor in your sailing does not mean that the rest of the sailing world shares your opinion. Where I'm pretty sure that I'm the minority in this discussion, I know for a fact that there is an overwhelming number of sailors, youth or not, who consider the potential of Olympic competition incredibly inspiring.

I have to agree with John. And besides politics and money, there is no good reason (definitely none good enough for the sailors who are getting caught up in this mess) for the US governing body to withdraw support. We DID medal at the last Olympics.

But maybe the problem is right under our noses. In reading these threads I've noticed a heavy critique of US Sailing, the Olympics, etc. etc. I understand that most of us on catsailor have very little interest in

non-amateur

sailing. But why criticize something that requires little more than appreciation? Do you really think that nothing

trickles down

? That there is NO benefit to Olympic level competition? But that's beside the point, multihulls should be in the Olympics because there is no good reason for them not to be.

& WHERE is our youth multihull development team?!

Should we care? Yes. Does it matter? No.

I went to the US Sailing meeting, and the Multihull meeting in Newport, this past week end. Talked to the board members etc.

First, the problem with the

National Organizations

and multihull sailing, in a nut shell, it is not them, it is US. By that I mean, multihull sailors should just look in the mirror for all their issues. If no cares at the

National

level, then it is because we do not care at the National level. This is just my opinion as I have been going to US Sailing meetings for about 20 years now, so I have a pretty good feel for what's up. What I see, on the rare occasions when the multihulls (I include myself) do show up, is Hobie vs Tornado vs Nacra vs (name your favorite multihull). There is very little interest in the big picture for multihull sailing, by US. You say you support youth sailing? Well guess what? Art Stevens, is the only one single handedly battling the dark side for youth multhull sailing. If you really want to help, give him a call and a hand. He is trying to put together the youth event right now in California.
Want insight on the recent board issues with the Olympics? Simple really. Did they want to leave out multihulls? No, quite frankly they didn't even think of us. Why, look in the mirror. You/we weren't there, that simple. I am not talking about this last meeting, I am talking about the last several years. Sure a couple of us have been around, we represent a major percentage of sailing? That has never been present.

Now for the big picture, the feeling at the board level is that sailing in general is not long for this World in the Olympics. The Olympic Committee is all about World Political Correctness. They want 100s of Countries represented, and must have equal amount of women. Sailing is not viewed as making their life easier, so they want to get rid of it altogether. The board feels they are fighting a losing battle, multihulls quite frankly were not their main concern. As from their perspective, it did not look like it was ours either.

The future? We as multihull sailors have the brightest future in sailing by far. Our boats are fun to sail! We will continue to grow and enjoy a great sport. I hope when we gather in the future we can move ourselves forward with a little better unity and focus.

To drive my point home regarding our

National Organizations

, we act like a minority expecting others to do our work for us. Why? Because we are so deserving? Get real. We are a major sailing faction in the country, however try and find a major faction of us at any

Nation Organization

event. Sorry for the cold water. But stop gripping and start doing. Give Art a call and start helping.

Okay, let me ask this in a different way:
Do you think those hundreds of kids who go to the Orange Bowl Regatta in Miami every winter are doing it because they are thinking about maybe someday going to the Olympics?
Or would those kids go to that regatta even if sailing were NOT in the Olympics?

And do youth sailors sign up to participate in the U.S. Youth Multihull Championship because there is a multihull in the Olympics? Or do they do it because they want to win the national championship and go on to the world championship? If they knew sailing was not in the Olympics or a multihull was not in the Olympics, would they just say, to heck with it and find a sport that IS in the Olympics?

Does an adult who is choosing a sport to get into in mid life make his decision based upon what sports are in the Olympics?

In many sports (I'll use swimming as an example), youth events are structured with the Olympics as the ultimate goal. Kids start out striving to qualify for Junior Olympic meets, and then as they progress, Senior Olympic meets, and then national events. The Olympics are allways the carrot at the end of the stick. Sailing does not have the same progression. So I don't see the Olympics as the goal. For the youth coming up, I think they are looking at sailing for a top ranked college program as their goal. But no Multi's there.

If nothing else. It validates the top performers in our sport.

These top performers often give back by doing seminars that help the rest of us. I've been to seminars by Jay & Pease, Randy, and Robbie. If it weren't for the Olympics I probably would not have had these seminars by these people which I've learned a lot from.

You can get seminars from lots of people but when an Olympic Campaigner gives one you tend to listen. I think it validates the top of our sport. I think it brings our sport together under a common goal. I think without it we would have National Champions in many classes and they would not cross over as much into other classes.

Mike Hill
www.stlouiscats.com