There's so much fertile ground for comments here! And definitely at least two different threads rolled into one.

As for ISAF and the youth sailing program - it is an admirable goal to provide a path to the Olympic class multi, whether all that compete in that youth program desire to go there or not. It all seems a bit like what happened with the Tornado - the class itself did not want to update the rig and number of traps, but once that happened at the Olympic level the class followed suit. Maybe the thought is that the class will ultimately follow the lead. But it will be tough for the kids if the class doesn't follow, because the coaching won't be there until the adults get on similar boats (but that is also an issue for other designs). As for spin loads and strength - at this level of the game you don't need the fastest and most powerful and hardest to handle - you just need enough to make it fast enough and interesting enough and hard enough to keep learning sailors interested and learning.

As for getting kids interested in cats - I once asked an SCCA racer I was crewing for what would be the best class to start racing in. He said it didn't matter as long as it felt like a race car to me. There were classes that had tight rules and great heads up competition, but the cars weren't cutting edge. His point was that if you chose that class and the car didn't feel like a "race car" to you, you would lose interest regardless of all the other benefits and leave the sport sooner rather than later. Likewise if you chose the class with only one or two high tech cars in the field and running alone was less of a racing experience to you then the same end would result. Sage advice. What does all this mean? We sit around and postulate about what the superior youth boat is - has anybody tried asking the kids what gets their blood going? I think this is more important at this stage in the game for multis. As pointed out some of the leading classes in monos for youths aren't cutting edge, but they're established and the interest is already there. For multis it is not established, and most non-multi people know about Hobie 16s from the ones that are rotting on beaches or from their mono instructors telling horror stories of blown tacks and capsizing. But maybe the answer from the kids would still be the Hobie 16. But either way I suspect it needs to feel like a race boat to them, and there is competition from the mono side.

BTW - I don't mean to bash the 16. I still feel the 14 is the best boat for young ones to learn cat sailing on. As for an affordable and available spin boat for the youth program, I believe the Hobie 18 with a spin (and a few other updates) would be an excellent choice - tough, has boards, tuning options that are relevant to moving up, not as high-tech or expensive, etc. Too bad that's not an option anymore.

Blather mode off...