good day for our tornado boys so far this morning with a 2nd and 3rd.

all us cat sailors got upset that the cat has been dropped from 2012 but we shouldnt be, i dont think we will be able to tell the difference from this olympics to weymouth as they havent shown a single tornado race so far (or even highlights) the ironing boards and half boats have had at least one race each most have had two televised races but the tornado has had nothing. prehaps icrap is hoping nobody notices that its gone missing in 2012

Well done to Leigh and Will. Pulled it back so at least they are in the medal race.

Thats Team GB in every medal race of the regatta. Did any other of the countries manage that?

This has "been on the cards" for a while, but it does mean a few people in high places will "loose face" so don't bank on it. 

Fingers crossed.....

Windguru forcast says there may be some wind around 11-16 kts and 2m waves!

finally some real sailing and some wind about mailto:f@?!ing - f@?!ing time.

will and leigh going well aswell come on boys

well done guys great race.

The tornado looked fantastic, decent camera shots, high speed action brilliant to watch even ben said they saved the best til last. congratulations to the muppetts at icrap (isaf) for voting out the most exciting class in the olympics rip tornado

Fantastic to watch.  This is the second race my Son has watched (see 49 medalace thread).  He loved it. 

Oz, I think he now wants a Tornado!!!!!

Well done to Leigh and Will (who crewed for me now and then ).

Must pop an Email/text message off to Will.

simon good news the boy wants  a torn now.

laser 4000 you missed the first lap and found it dull !!!!!!!!!!! i only missed the first 10 seconds of the 100 meters and thought that was dull !! everyone disagrees with me and said it was amazing. i shall sleep well knowing i am never wrong and everyone else is

Maybe I'm in the minority here but I thought they were both awesome.  The Stars were a great example of what the purist in me loves about racing: tactics and boatspeed combined.

The T's on the other hand - what a spectacle.  I have to say that in comparison the 49ers looked pedestrian and there was much less clarity over the racing.  I'm also loving the fact that Leigh and Will hit the front and showed their capability... left us with a bit of pride in the one class that I was starting to feel gloomy about.

To combine a load of different threads, I sympathise with other people's comments on the 49er but I still think they're great in the lighter stuff.  Rather than squabbling about classes, I suggest that we drop softball (There's baseball, right?  Isn't that like us including the Finn and the Optimist as two different classes?!) or men's beach volleyball (you've got normal volleyball; what's the difference?) and get the cats reinstated.

Brought it home to me today what an absolute 'kin disgrace they are dropping the Tornado.  I'm not a multi man but for sheer boatspeed, spectacle and camera friendly opportunities they have to be simply the best class out there.  Much as I enjoyed watching some of the other classes race, they were simply not as exciting to watch.  Watchig that windward board just slicing into the higher wave crests from the onboad camera as they sent it downwind was awesome.

ISAF, are you really that incompetent and ignorant of the views of the people who's sport you are supposed to represent or is there some other reason that you'd rather not talk to us about?

I'm embarrassed to even have your sticker in the cockpit of my Fireball.

Fair point, but as the classes are supposed to be representative of various aspects of the sport, the omission of a multi just seems plain daft.  And how many people around the world choose match racing as thier chosen way of competing in the sport?  Personally, I find it very dull to watch and it worries me that it's the thin end of the wedge to drive all Olmpic sailing towards a more "easy to understand" one on one format.

Just like the "medal race"...

I sometimes think that as sailors we have a collective concern that people won't understand our sport and try and compensate... when other sports just don't care.  I actually understand the Madison - and it's watchable - but I've just "wasted" a good few minutes of my life watching two blokes bounce up and down on the balls of their feet in a semi-final that purports to be taekwondo.  Hmmm...

In my opinion getafix's point is spot on.  When the IOC / ISAF announced that a class was to be dropped, there was plenty of "my class is better than yours" going on.  Perhaps instead we should unite and say "hold on a minute, why are you dropping any?"

I personally am a big fan of all sport, but if we look at (and please forgive me any rowers or kayakers out there who are offended by this collection) "paddling" based sports there are an amazing number of different disciplines and distances!  Why shouldn't we have: Laser - 1km windward; Laser - 2km sausage; Laser - 3km triangle as separate events?!

JimC made an excellent point earlier about why each class is being sailed and you'd struggle to justify why any should be dropped.  IIRC, there was very little difference between the number of votes for the T and the keelboat.  Now I don't know the number of different nations competing in each event but I suspect that sailing's a match for many.  It's time to make a stand!