Ah.... the best description of what you want in an Olympic Boat that I know is from Bill Roberts. He used a Formula 1 race car analogy.... noting... the pro drivers can manage this car while amateurs go into the wall. Goran Marstrom (Tornado and M20)builder wanted a boat that was sensitive to the actions of the crew (Bill Roberts criteria) and allowed the team to race the boat tactically. Together these attributes allow an Olympic level race to sort out very very fine degrees of skill and eliminate luck as much as possible.

So..the combination allows the BEST sailor to medal. Just having a boat that is hard to sail or badly behaved is a low bar. Hell... if this is our standard... the Hobie 16, is hard to sail by newbies... yet the top sailors have no problems.

So... what you don't hear are glowing testimonials about what a great sailing boat the N17 is.... Compare that to the A cat sailors talking about how wonderful the Flyer and like ilk A cats are.... and now they are over the moon about the DNA generation boats with winglets and the right foils. (IME, both are true and on par with the Tornado as machines) The new boats are faster, easier to sail and make the game fast and tactical. THAT should be the Olympic Boat as well.