Who's for the chop or ...

Originally posted by Beast of Bodmin      With obesity on the increase causing more and more ill health througout the western world why pander to it by having heavyweight classes .The olympics is supposed to be about fitness so handicap the heavyweights by making them sail an inapropriate boat . There's two classes gone so the 29erxx can come in

What about taller people who are going to be havy even in peak physical condition, weighing even more the greater muscle mass they put on. Pandering to a lighter weight will just reduce the height that can enter - heavyweight boats are not just for fat people!

I think the easiest way to drop one category at the moment without great change would be to make the 470 a joint class, possibly moving towards and integrated class of one man and one woman per boat.


Edited by Hobbo

Originally posted by CT249 If you lose the board, you'll lose the cheapest and most accessible class.

 

Possibly, but how many people do you know that have an RS-X compared to say a laser? I've got 4 windsurf boards, but a course racing board is not one of them. Mind you I never wanted an IMCO either....

Dinghies are pretty cheap really, although an Olympic campaign is obviously not. At the highest level it's not cheap for the windsurfers either. I was chatting to Nick Dempsy at Weymouth a while back (bronze at the last Olympics) and he's going through 2-3 boards a month at £1800 ish a pop..... 

Oh dear! Here we go again.

My idea would be to get rid of all gender based classes and introduce a wider range of boats, being more weight specific so that some classes wouild have a majority of female sailors, others would be mixed and others mainly men.

The classses could be:
Lightweight Board
Heavy weight Board
Lightweight 1-person boat
Middleweight 1 person boat
Heavy weight 1 person boat
Lightweight 2 person boat
Middleweight 2 person boat
Heavyweight 2/3 person boat
Catamaran

The 10th medal should be reserved for the Olympic team racing event - surely the way to go to ensure a media friendly spectacle.

I have deliberately not specified the type of boat. I would suggest that the lightweight or middleweight 2 person boat could be a skiff , the heavyweight 2 person boat a keelboat. I would prefer the crewed heavyweight boat not to have a restrictive weight limit (as the Star does at the moment - which discriminates against heavy crews but not heavy helms!).

At present there is such a dearth of boats for the heavyweights that they almost choose themselves: - Finn and Star (unless someone wants to revive the Tempest). As for the others...?

If board sailing could be deemed a separate event then the weight categories could be increased to 4, to ensure that the spread of weights in each class is narrower.

Gordon

Originally posted by Doug.H Why not the SB3, theres already a well established international circuit, big sponsership deals.  And best of all, there are all girl teams, all male teams and mixed teams all vying for top.  There doesnt seem to be one reigning force so maybe this could be the option for the keelboat class.

too many people. one of the key issues is keeping down the number of competitors and any boat that needs 3/4 competitors to sail is always going to struggle.

Originally posted by Skiffman Then there will the the RS800, but not ordinary 800. It will have a deck similar to a 49er (very flat, unlike the sit in cockpit at the moment), mainsheet off the boom for the crew to play, wide racks with training bars and possiblity some changes to the rig.

I'd like to sail this beast. Not been a fan of the sit in deck and mainsheet led to the floor. It has 0 hope of being selected though.