I agree that the selection came down to a Viper and the N17. They had different strengths and weakness per the ISAF specs. The choice was clearly for a bigger boat and ISAF accepted the risk that the boat was not quite done. The technical committee failed to get the job completed.

So you note.... Taming the N17 with T foils and suggest that choosing not to do so is reasonable... I think that it is as unreasonable as telling the A class sailors to just man up and not put T foils on their C foiled DNA's... just because the pitch pole factor is more challenging. YMMV.

Why move the boards.... because all of the A class designers do what Melvin did and put the boards where the math tells them to... then a year later... they move them forward. So... its just a hunch. YMMV.

So, the 49ner team did extensive changes in the first two years to get the boat basically right.... Nacra was forced to redesign the rig and they did that after the breakages.... For some reason... they did not refine the boat in the same manner and to the same degree as the 49ner... That is my point... it is half baked... I don't know... maybe the politics of it all made them stop refining the boat... ISAF gave them a year to get it working and ... by definition... it was done after a year. The ISAF technical committee had a lot riding on the wisdom of picking this design and their judgement that this was the right design and they believed Melvin's mumbo jumbo... ... ERGO... the world nods their head....the boat is right after a year... I am the kid yelling.. hey mom... the emperor has no clothes... To me it looks pretty silly and lame for the boat to be jumping out of the water after the best in the world have sailed it for two years.

In choosing a SMOD boat that was unproven... the onus was on the ISAF and NACRA to get it right...

Time will tell... if the boat stays the same for the next quad... You guys were right... and I will acknowledge the error in my judgment... If they change it... The question should be... what the hell took so long and who is accountable.

I think Nacra will insist on changes because you probably have a hard time selling this kind of boat to the public high performance market... For reference, look at the F18HT class... Indeed it is a challenging boat to keep the pointy end up in a breeze... You could also say... the boat has bad to terrible manners. YMMV... nevertheless... challenging to sail does not make it appropriate for the Olympics.