Mark
Ok so we are talking about the Olympic development argument now. The argument says that the kids going to the Youth Worlds are on an Olympic path and that they should be sailing a boat that is similar to the boat they are presumably shooting for in the Olympics. Basically in the catamaran world we are taking about training for the Tornado class and only the Tornado class. In this context yes I am REALLY saying that competition trumps years of experience in high performance boats. You do need to put it in the context of this argument however. The years of experience that we are talking about is in the Youth sailing years.
In those youth sailing years the important thing is NOT that you sail a boat that is similar to the Olympic boat in your discipline. The most important thing is that you have been given a chance to race in a competitive and fair environment. Now, do you need to put years of training into the Tornado to get to the Olympics? Yes obviously you do. Does it mater what boat you sailed growing up. No it doesn’t. Does it mater that you have grown up competing at a high level in your chosen sport. Yes it absolutely does. There are loads of PHD papers related to this that often appear in Olympic Coach magazine. I put a paper that I particularly liked up on the Sailing Medallist web site a few years ago http://www.ussailing.org/olympics/SailingMedallist/03vol8/page2.htm . I think the concept of "sports intelligence" mentioned in that article is a great observation, but I'm getting off track.
Following my argument we don't need a multihull discipline in the Youth Worlds at all to produce great Tornado sailors and I support that conclusion. There are however many more arguments to support a multihull in this championship but I'm preaching to the quire on this one so I will not waste the band width.
A lot of young people seek out my advice before they start on Olympic campaigns and there is one thing, among others, that I tell all of them. I tell them that the Olympics is so far beyond any other competitive sailing arena that you should consider yourself to be starting from scratch in your sailing career. I tell them to choose a class that they think they will enjoy the most and not a class that is necessarily like the boats that the have been sailing up to that point. In the Olympic classes you need to specialize so much in your specific class and the level is so high you should again consider yourself to be starting form scratch. I made this mistake, not that I have any regrets, when I chose the 470 I thought that it was a good choice since I grew up sailing dinghies. In truth I had as much to learn about sailing a 470 as I would have had learning about a Tornado or a Star.

My main point again is that it the Olympic development equation it doesn't mater what boat you grew up sailing. What does mater is that it was competitive because exposure to highlevel competition in the early years does mater. By creating a competitive environment we are teaching the important ingredients mentioned in the above paper.