Future Olympic Classes?

Sorry mate.......

You'll find most spinnaker cats such as F-16, F18 are quicker than a 49er up and down wind as well as around the course.  The Tornadoes, M-20s, Inter 20s ect are quicker than the 18 foot skiff.

The first Spinnaker Tornado to hit Sydney Harbour lined up against some 18s during a World Champs.  The T was running a full skiff style kite and kite bag and was a LOT slower than current Tornadoes.  Anyway the guys who were on the T started after the 18s and beat the first one to the top mark buy heaps.  They sat up there and waited for the last 18 to round before they set their kite and still beat the first 18 to the bottom.

Also many years ago a marathon race was held between cats and skiffs on Sydney Hrb.  The under developed spinnaker T's finised before the 18s which beat the non spinnker Ts.  The 18s in those days carried bigger rigs and larger wings with the largest at 31 feet across with 46 foot stick.  The C Class cats that were racing just cleaned up all boats on the course buy a HUGE margin and cats were told not to return next year.

Just a bit of OZ sailing history for you.

No worries mate.  For the record the old big rig 18s were quicker than the new ones in a straight line.  The new ones should be more efficent around the bouys as they are more manouverable..

Secondly the "Normal Ts" I refer too were non spinnaker boats long before the class adopted spinnakers.

The T whilst trialing the kites used larger, fuller kites and found they did not offer greater around the bouy advantages.  With poor shaped sails and even poorer spinnaker retrieval systems the T was initialy as quick if not slower around the course as a non spin T and the members of the ITA voted against the change. 

After pressure from the IOC and ISAF to move with the times or face being dropped as the Olympic class the ITA adopted the spinnaker and developed it over several years before making it class legal.  In the last couple of years the T has become a lot quicker than pre and even early spinnaker days.  The T is set to become quicker agian for the comming season with the Introduction of carbon Mast.  We may well see in the future, carbon beams and more efficient dagger boards which would take the T into another leauge again.

Nope, their already using them.  Came into effect after Athens and Marstrom have been building them for more than 10 years now (not officialy used).  Forbes had one in Oz for many years.

Masts should be stronger and lighter. I think from 26 kg to 14 kg.

Not as radicaly light as an A Class stick.  Just more reliable and more capable of withstanding the loads of the new spinnaker.

Carbon Mast update   January 14, 2005

http://www.tornado.org/html/news_article.asp?ArticleID=57

Carbon Mast update February 23, 2005

http://www.tornado.org/html/news_article.asp?ArticleID=68

Carbon Mast update March 18, 2005

http://www.tornado.org/html/news_article.asp?ArticleID=78

Come to Grafham and I'll show you my Inter 17 go faster upwind and down.  Only previso is that there needs to be some wind.  Anything over a F3 and I would usually plan to lap the 49ers after about 60 minutes of sailing. (5 laps).

Where the 49er gains in the lighter wind performance, the 49er gets powered up ealier than my Inter 17 and so I will struggle to stay with them in the lighter stuff.  This will change when I get my new (secret for now) boat, just need to sell my 17 first

The reason for worrying about TV viewers is that we are all TV viewers from time to time and if the sport looks interesting to the execs they are more likely to put it on then we get a chance to watch some sailing on TV