as per the ioc request a few years back they want high speed and excitind "Visually appealing " cat class. to me that would have to be a f-18 i-20 f-16 style race od spin class.
Personally I agree with others that Olympic selection of your class is bad for the class; that is untill ISAF/IOC get with the program and allow a full formula based multihull sailing event, not some SMOD derivative. But even then the benefits to a class could be a mixed bag.
I the world was perfect then I would like to see full F18 as the mens event, this is just by far the best class for 2-up multihull racing at this event with by far the best market penetration and even affordable to poorer nations.
For the women the F16 might well be a very good choice, surely better then the SL16 or Hobie 16. The women should have their own fully blown race boat and not be shoved aside with a H16 when the guys are doing F18. Having said this the F16 will not be selected because of political and financial entanglements inside ISAF with respect to H16 and SL16 and I don't believe the F16 class would be in favour of olympic selection either. I think the A-cat example (refusing to be selected) is well remembered in this class. I believe the A's refused because they didn't find the SMOD requirement compatible with their class philosophy and I fully agree on that. For example selecting the Hobie Tiger as the Olympic boat will be bad for the F18 class by absolutely favouring one builder over the others especially in sales (financial cloud); this inequality will empower Hobie cat to the point where it can dominate the class and in time they will start acting like the emporer. NOT GOOD ! No formula class can accept this and expect to come out undamaged. The achilles heel of formula classes is the balancing between builders. AFterall the tornado class was a multibuilder class till Marstrom became the favoured builder and killed all others.
Wouter
