Fastest dinghy?

Which raises the question. Why no cats? Did they feel they had no chance

My inter 17 IS faster than a 49er.  Simple as that.  On UK yardstick I rate at 735 and the 49er at 750.  I do struggle against them in the lighter stuff, but as soon as  Iam wiring, it's bye bye.

Tornado IS MUCH faster than a 18 footer, cannot find the article from the tornado web site, but when they were testing the new big rig a couple of years ago, first time out they went to play with some 18 footers and the author was saying something like, Faster up wind, but not by much and totally swept them away downwind.  I'll try and find the piece later.

Re the Tornado v 18 quote. I think it came from Bundy & Forbes, who also said that they go half as fast again downwind (or a third as fast again?) with the new rig.

But strangely, as mentioned, when the Tornadoes here changed their rig, the yardstick dropped only 3 points; 66 to 69. Dropped 5% or so is NOT equivalent to going half as fast for half the race! So they must be exxagerating, or else the new T would clean up every race on yardstick. Yet even B & F are not out-of-sight ahead of the As and T 4.9s and F 18s on yardstick results IIRC.

 And while they do seem to have an advantage under that ridiculously small drop, it's not enormous - we can beat the Australian Tornado champ on yardstick with the T 4.9, and the national T 4.9 champ does it most of the time (as does the recent world A Class champ) at our club. The former Nacra world champ with his F 18 is also very competitive at our club from memory. Ergo, the Tornado CAN'T be 1/3 as fast again under kite as they claim.

While I know the quote, I dunno, I'll still prefer to stay with the results of racing (determined in the 18 v T contest, AND in the handicaps derived from raciing experience).

I'd love to see another organised contest between the two, 'cause I admit I haven't seen too many contests between a spi cat and a skiff. The racing we've done in the T 4.9 sloop against the T 4.9s with kite shows how bloody quick they are downwind in the moderate, I admit, so I'm still open ont h e question although I tend to favour the skiff.