Rather than a never ending supply of copycat SMODs, how about the following six new restricted development classes.  Sure, it doesn't catch all demographics, but it gets the majority.  Note:  Where kites are mentioned I mean asymmetrics.  Rules should prohibit developments that increase cost, complexity or difficulty e.g. no fixed ruddes, so that retain the appealing SMOD-like simplicity. 

F1 - Singlehanded class, one sail, no trapeze.  Based on Moth rules before they went narrow, foil-borne and beyond the ability/expense/hassle of the club racer.  Two sail sizes proposed, one for Laser size sailors, one for radial size folk.  Bytes, Europes, Streakers etc would be grandfathered in.

F2 - Singlehander with kite and trapeze, like MPS and 700, both of which would measure.  That way you get to sail together in bigeger fleets.

F3 - Two man boat, no kite or trapeze.  Like a N12, but able to carry a bit more weight and with more modern rig rules.  NS14?

F4 - Two man, kite, no trapeze.  RS400 style dev class (or Merlin with asymmetric).

F5 - Two man, kite, one trapeze.  SImilar to L4000 and ISO, both of which would qualify.

F6 - As F5 but supersized, for the growing number of 15+stone sailors.

And Contender

Single hander with Trapeze - we are not all sailing gods capable of having the tiller extension in one hand, the main sheet in another and the spinaker sheet in a third!!

what about the 14? or the 18?

you have nothing there for two or three stringing?????

I like to think of my self as a sailing god (I'm not but I can dream) but I couldnot aford to replace a spinaker and related kit on a regular bases hence the appleal of the contender 

What about singlehanded mono rigged hiking boat for people who like more sail than a Laser?

The reason there's so many boats out there is because they're right for someone. Whilst I can see the problem with the dilution of the sport into too many classes, the range of boats out there actually helps keep people in the sport. I was fundamentally bored of sailing Lasers and almost gave up sailing. Then I bought a 300 and am hopelessely addicted.

I gave up sailing for 12 years cos I was bored with it, and came back when I realised how exciting some of the new classes were. For me it is a shame the most new development now is in the plastic washing up bowl department, but actually these robust and accessable boats must be good for newcomers to the sport, and therefore must be good for the sport!

(I mean they must be, mustn't they? I can't believe it really, but...) Anyway, I know it would be nice if we could all agree and sail the same thing, but people actually want the choice, and loose interest if they can't find exactly what they want. The paradox of modern sailing: more choice = more people sailing.

No two man kite Twin  trapeze   like the 49er?

And why get rid of all symetric kites? That would get rid of your 3 largest 2 handed national fleets in a oner *

Or did you just never learn to gybe a reguler kite yet?

* (I havent checked my figures so I could be wrong)

Edit - OK I checked, I was wrong but mainly on which classes I thought were top

True. Like I say I didnt check figures before I posted. But then 5&6 on the overall list were Mirror and Cadet, both of which do have a symetric kite. And the Enterpirise dosent have a kite at all.

My point basicly was that to right of all symetric kites would right of the fireball and the 5o5. And a comparison of there average nationals numbers from the Y&Y table gives Fireball 64 and 5o5 41 against Laser 4000 53 and Iso 31. Not to mention that both sym classes mentioned above have held worlds in the UK in the last 2 years with over 100 boats at each.......

So for 2 handed single wire boats getting rid of all symetric spiniker boats might be a little bit stupid, dont you think?

"F6 - As F5 but supersized, for the growing number of 15+stone sailors."

So all the proposed classes are for dwarves and the F6 is for small people...

What about an F7...for say 240kg crew weight - so that your average rugby forward can go sailing with a team mate. I suppose you could allow the lightweights to sail 3 up. At las a class with promotional T shirts that fit!

Gordon

As Les says; no 2 string boat

NO CATS !!!!!!!!!

Cat1 - Box rule 16 footer; single handed and 2 up - F16

Cat2 - Box rule 2 up boat 18 footer - F18, but a  much lighter version at around 130kg

Cat3 - Box rule development class 20 footer- Tornado; maybe shedding a few KG.

Cat4 - Single hander - VERY limited development A class.

Except that this is the Dinghy forum. Try the Dinghy Multihulls forum for that sort of argument, sorry, 'discussion'...

Surely we have most of the list...Small person's development classes, N12 and Cherub, bigger person's Merlin and I14. We have no slower Asymmetric development class, maybe because at slower speeds a symmetric kite is better. Then there are the aussie skiff designs waiting to be adopted for bigger boats. I'm sure 2 up in a 16' skiff would do 2 rugby forwards...

Singlehanded development classes are less well represented, so maybe room for some more boats there...

So out of the olympic boats, only the Laser and Europe would be able to compete in these classes.

Now which does that say more about, the classes for the olympics, or the proposed class list?

Though there is no heavy bastard single man hiking boat represented in your list

Maybe I didn't explain myself properly.  I didn't include a twin string class, cats or symmetric kite boats, because these classes already exist.  I'm not trying to get rid of existing classes, just limit the amount of new ones emerging (and combining some of the smaller,similar, existing ones).  II was thinking that it would be good if the ISO and L4000 (for example - ) measured under the same rule, so they raced together, not seperately.  For a variety of reasons I don't see symmetric kites being commercially viable on new designs and yet they have a speed advantage on non high performance boats.  Hence they would be banned.

If you want a F8 for rugby types, that's fine by me.