What on earth would give you that idea? OF COURSE, we need a multihull in the Olympics -- preferably two of them. We need a two-person cat and a single-hander. And both of them should be "Open" classes -- meaning open to both men and women.

The multihulls are unique in that it should not be necessary to segregate and have separate classes on the basis of sex, as they seem to have to do in most of the monohull dinghies.

I think it is sending the wrong message when they use types of boats that have to be segregated by sex of the sailor.

Sailing should be more like the equestrian events, where there is no sex discrimination -- either for the horses or the riders. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Now, whether or not the Olympic multihull class should continue to be the Tornado is an entirely different topic. The point is, we HAVE to make sure at least one multihull class stays in the Olympics, and we should be pushing for two.

The multihull community is just not vocal enough. We take the status quo too much for granted.

Instead of "complaining" after the fact, as we are now stuck doing in the United States, we should all be more proactive about letting our respective country sailing organizations know how important it is to have multihulls in the Olympics -- and WHY.