Mark,
I think that the International Olympic Committee is trying to make as many events as possible equally inclusive to men and women. They also are trying to reduce or contain the number of people who participate in the Olympics, while at the same time adding new events like ballroom dancing and tug-of-war and golf, all of which are going to be gender-equal.

The way I see it, ISAF has managed to get around the gender equality issue for sailing and add classes to the sailing events by calling them “Open,” meaning open to both men and women.

Right now there are three “Open” classes, the Multihull, the 49er and the Laser. None of those three is truly open to women with the current boats.

I don’t think the Tornado should be taken out. However, if there is a choice, I think ISAF (read IOC) would go for a boat that is more user friendly for both males and females.

If we ADD another multihull class, which definitely should be done, they would have to eliminate one of the other sailing classes. The options for elimination would be the 49er, the Finn or the Laser or maybe the Europe. My choice would be to eliminate both the Finn (single-hander male) and the Europe (single-hander female), and replace them both with a single-hander multihull -- Multihull Women and Multihull Men.

This does not add to the number of sailing class disciplines and does not add to the number of people attending the Olympics. And it maintains the gender balance. Any woman who can sail a Europe dinghy can sail a single-handed catamaran. And, of course, any man who can sail a Finn can sail anything.

(Technically, small catamarans are considered to be “dinghies,” so they could easily replace the ”equipment” in the single-handed dinghy categories with catamarans if they wanted to.)

P.S. I am not promoting the cause of women in sailing. I am just saying what I think is the thinking of the International Olympic Committee and, therefore, the International Sailing Federation. It is all very political.

P.P.S. The last time around when the Hobie 16 was proposed as an Olympic Class, as I recall, the class association was opposed to it and the factory was in favor of it. It would be interesting to know how the class and the factory feel about it now.