But the best example I ever encountere was this. The tornado class voted down, with a large manjority, all the changes proposed back in 2000. Booth and Bundock when ahead as planned anyway and 18 months later 90 % of the class had upgraded and the tornado fleets started attracting more and more boats on the line. Somewhere in those 18 months the large majority of "no-voters" changed their minds and went back on their most fundamental believes and upgraded anyway. Most remarkably was that never again a complaint was heard from any significant group of Tornado sailors.
Just to get the Tornado part of this clear. The Tornado class had been looking at spis and double trapezes a long time before the changes in 2000. Booth, Derecksen and others promoted the Tornado Sport (Digression: look who is running the Volvo Extreme 40 class, TS management = TornadoSport management, and check where the URL
http://www.tornadosport.com takes you <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />)
However, it was not Booth and others who made the Tornado class go for the new setup. The ones responsible for that was ISAF who decided that for the 2004 olympics the open multihull would be the Tornado with double trapezes and spi. After that, it made no sense for the class to keep on to the old setup. So the "no-voters" was more or less overruled by ISAF. I dont think the "lake sailors" changed their minds, and there are still many T's who sail with the classic rig becouse they dont want the spi and double trapeze (but these boats dont compete much in class events anymore).
The switch to the new sailplan did increase fleets in England and other places as far as I know. But the Tornado class lost some participants, which was OK if they sold their boats to sailors who wanted to upgrade the platform to the new sailplan. If they keept their boats and continued sailing with the old configuration, they was pretty much lost for the class/class racing. I guess this is the core of the issues with the Mozzies also, how many sailors will be lost from class racing and will new ones enter the class..
Most remarkably was that never again a complaint was heard from any significant group of Tornado sailors.
If we look away from the "significant group" part which is too open an statement, there has been lots of noise. But the carbon mast controversy overshadows that <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
In my opinion, putting the new sailplan on the Tornado was a good move. It made the boat more fun to sail, especially in low wind conditions, and the crew dont have to wear a diving mask with snorkel anymore when going downwind. Bad side is that all loads increased, some needed new aft beams, and some vintages of hulls showed their age..
I got to admit that I also prefer to go downwind with the spi up, but I have a crew to handle the spi..
Discussing advantages and drawbacks to changes in the open surely must be a good thing.
I dont know if it will be a smart move to change the Australian Mozzies, but times are changing and the South Africans seem pretty pleased with both their setups and racing.
