I think that the Laser is a good case in point. It is a specific and tightly controlled one-design class. Throughout an Olympic campaign you will go through 2 hull, many different masts, sails, rudders and daggerboards either trying to find the best equipment available or because your boat has taken enough of a beating that it is no longer as stiff as you need it to be. Somewhere earlier on another thread about this topic, I went over a Laser selecting event that happened in Boston, actually just north east of Boston, where over 100 hulls, masts, booms, sails, rudder blades and daggerboards were present. For the next 12-24 hours they were sorted through to find the best of each. You were looking at sail shape, hull stiffness and fairing, etc... This is a ritual and a time consuming process. On Tornados we purchased either a Marstom, reg White, Sailcraft of Canada or Lindsay. Maybe we raced home-built boats, Holton or Gougoen. There were competent Australian builders (Boyer for one) and so-on. We faired our own hulls or had someone fair them and went out racing. These boats changed over time and Marstrom became the builder of choice with 90%+ of the market. They are race ready, last 8-12 years competively and until now held their market value. We keep hearing about the cost of a Tornado compared to other Olympic classes, but not even a Star has the racing life of a Tornado. A laser campaign will probably run $20,000 for the campaign, while a Tornado may run in excess of $40,000. A Star is in the $60,000 range. These are for the platforms, rigging, sdails and so-on. But lets also remember that the vehicle on which to compete is the smallest portion of the Olympic campaign budget. I was talking to a couple of Olympic sailors who put the overall cost of a campaign for 2004-2008 upwards of $400,000. So that puts the boat at 10% of the overall budget.