Darryl,
You could be right. Of course, I am not old enough to have "forgotten" what happened in the late 1950's, but I think those ABCD Classes were formed so that catamarans in each Class, and in all the muddy waters in between, could race against each other boat for boat. I think at that time it was the only thing IYRU could figure out to do for catamaran people to make it possible for them to race against each other. (And I'm not sure IYRU had the word "development" in their vocabulary.)

But that was before a handicapping system was created. In the U.S. Richard Blanchard developed the Portsmouth system beginning in the early 1960's, and that kind of made the ABCD Class system unnecessary, because from then on all the boats raced against each other on the handicap system instead.

But for some reason boats continued to try to fit into the IYRU Class categories for many years. For instance, the Hobie 14 was designed to fit into the A Class; and the Hobie 16 was designed to fit into the B Class, as were other catamarans in the 1970's. Nobody seemed to care whether the boat was smaller than the box -- sail area was the determining factor as to which IYRU Class you were in. Of course, they were all one-design classes, so the IYRU Classes were irrelevant. I have no idea why it was thought to be necessary to fit within one of those classes.

For over 30 years the Tornado was the only optimized B Class catamaran (as far as I know), and they hung in there with their 235 square feet of sail area (same as a Hobie 16). Now that the Tornado has finally increased its sail area, is there any optimized B Class cat left?

The reason I love the A Class is because they have stayed true to the original parameters and worked within them. They have not given in to pressures to increase sail area, add spinnakers, add foils -- and I hope they don't do any of those things.

As far as I am concerned, the A-Class cats are classic. They have been around for more than 50 years. If I see an ancient Unicorn, I recognize it immediately as an A-Class. And I hope that 50 years in the future the Unicorn will still be recognizable as an A-Class. (I'm sorry, but I can't remember the names of the other A-Class cats that came MUCH earlier than the Unicorn.)

I often wonder what would have happened to the A Class if the Unicorn had been chosen for the Olympics instead of the Tornado. As I recall, they were the two primary contenders.

I love history, so if there is anybody who is actually old enough to remember the genesis of the A-Class, please chime in. Unfortunately, I don't think the Gougeons frequent this forum. (Sorry, Meade and Jan, I don't mean to imply that you are old. I know you were just kids back in the '50's.)