It amuses me that some see the youth multihull as a stepping stone to the olympic tornado. I thought the idea of introducing youth to Catsailing was just that- to swell the ranks of catsailing, not to push them on to become one of the twenty-five successful representatives at a Tornado olympics.

Some kids can handle kites but 12yr old learners find it difficult on a boat optimised for nineteen yr olds. Dinghies doesn't have the leverage or loading of a catamaran so we can't compare them.

I sail a spinnaker cat a lot. To be competitive, I need a gorilla on the front. Kites are very hard work if you want to be competitive.Its not just the sheet load. The hoist and drop are also very strenuous. On the youth boats, the crew will also assist with the mainsheet, so it is hard work.

Finally a comment on why the spinnaker has not found its way onto the open Hobie 16 class:
Imagine the difficulty of conducting a round-robin world championship for 112 teams on 56 boats equipped with spinnakers? How would the beach crews check for damage to the spi after each race... pull the spi up on the beach in 20 kts ??
The way Hobie does a supplied boat worlds makes it unlikely that spinnakers can be included. The class doesn't seem to want them but that doesn't mean that the class is not encouraging youth.