Olympic Classes for 2012

The loss of the 470 is a real shame.  Kinda goes with the "dumbing down" of sailing in general if you ask me...my club is one of the largest inland venues in the country with very big Fireball and F15 fleets yet we seem to almost ignore symmetric spinnakers when it comes to training.  This won't help...as far as I can tell the whole RYA squad machine will now be churning out girls who have no idea whatsoever about flying a traditional kite and probably no desire to learn, unless they want to go lead mining.

I've said before on this forum and it even made it into the magazine that the depth of skill required to fly a symmetric kite is just miles ahead of the two rope "up down, in out" ethos of an asymmetric.  I sail some of the lairiest asymm boats about and yes, whilst they are great fun and very fast, the tactical choices and technical moves you can pull off in a symmetric boat make it so much more interesting...especially in a big fleet.  Pitchfork hoist or Aussie drop anyone?

Question is, will the men's 470 be next?  Personally, I'd have liked to have seen a symmetric boat for both men and women as well as a skiff, or even a mixed class...just look at the dynamics going on in the mixed badminton or equestrianism for a really entertaining watch of men and women competing on totally equal terms.

What could be really interesting is if it blows snot in Weymouth and we have a repeat of the 49er medal race (with more powerful boats this time mind!) whilst the girls in the 29ers serve up some whuppasss on the boys!

Interesting to see how other sports are going "back to basics", F1 losing traction control etc, "pure" cars like Catherhams and Ariels stripped down to basics, and singlespeed, fully rigid mountain bikes enjoying massive popularity on the trails whilt London's streets are totally full of non-braked, retro styled fixed gear road bikes.  I wonder if in 10 year's time someone will rediscover the symmetric kite that suddenly makes a really good crew look like a superhero?

No doubt this is all very frustrating for those who invested in the high performance trials ...

This all sounds a bit dodgey to me, we'll end up with Bethwaite supplying every olympic/paralympic class soon

I think it will be close, either the ISAF council will stick with the 470 becuse they have had too much change recently as it is and they can't handle any more.  Or they will have realised the hole they have dug themselves into and try and dig themselves out by putting the XX in. 

Either way, because of the events they have chosen they will never end up with a mix of classes that most people will be happy with.  The other thing that needs to be balanced is the cost of changing classes and the rebuilding of infrastructure that will go with it.  Not a big problem in the UK, but for a lot of countries this could be prohibitive. 

One final point, the ISAF youth worlds will be held in 420s not 29ers - they seem to be scared of having both for some reason?!? - for the next couple of years (correct me if I am wrong) so we will have a whole age range of kids coming through youth scemes sailing a different kind of boat to what they are potentially going to race at the olympics.  That could well be the kind of confused mess ISAF may want to avoid (although this does not appear to have stopped them so far)!!

Originally posted by Phil eltringham the ISAF youth worlds will be held in 420s not 29ers - they seem to be scared of having both for some reason?!?

There's a proposal to have both gone to Council. The issues has always been with supplied boats. They can get supplied 420s cheaper than 29ers in some countries...

If they have do decide to have both then for what my opinion is worth its quite a hot potato because it blows the "5 disciplines" argument that's coming from the Cat lobby right out of the water. If the skiff ancestry types are a different discipline to the dinghy descended types at youth level then they are a different discipline at adult level too.

I must say though that I don't have a lot of time for that argument since there are clearly many more than 5 disciplines in sailing, even if you just restrict it to inshore round the cans racing, and there will never be enough medals for them all to have M & F events at the games...

But personally I don't see that round the cans racing in dinghies, skiffs and catamarans are so very different from each other. Talented sailors seem to be able to transfer quite handily between all of them, and there are almost as many similarities between 49er and Tornado as 49er and 470...