While few would dispute that the elevation from single-trapeze and no spinnaker to twin-trapeze and asymmetric gennaker has been an exciting move for the Tornado catamaran, it has been an incredibly expensive past few years for gear development. Perhaps in retrospect it would have been better to make all the moves in one go, back in 2000 when the Tornado Sport was first voted in. Instead, the introduction of the carbon rig in 2004 has meant a second phase of costly development over the past three years.

There seem other obvious, less expensive candidates, that could be brought in as the Olympic catamaran such as the Hobie Tiger. A cat with an 8-foot beam would be a good deal easier to transport than the Tornado with its 10-foot beam. But the sailors love their Tornado, and perhaps it is simply going through the growing pains that the Finn suffered during the 90s, and through which it has emerged into a cost-effective true one-design. There is a strong argument for giving the Tornado another Olympic cycle to get its house in order, as hopefully the carbon/asymmetric development curve should start to plateau. Also, British boatbuilder Graham Eeles is building boats now, providing some natural competition to established builder, Marstrom from Sweden.