Did ISAF make the right decision?

I think simon and I agree more or less, just i'm not very good at descibing what i mean.  Also this discussion seems to have come down to a battle over the symantics of the term "one design" (a little off the point).  When I first said "one design", i think i should have said "no development" or "identical". 

Can the Tornado really justify the fact it costs so much more (initial and continued costs) just because of a now unnessasary class rule.  If nothing else the T could pick one combination of hull shape, sail shape, etc and freeze everything.  ISAF want uniformity (allegedly at least), the best example of this being the spec for the new womens skiff, which called for all boats to be built in identical moulds from a single common plug, which seems, to me at least, as good a definition of one design, as any i think.  The other option could be what was suggested for the I14 at the same trials, where at the start of each olympic cycle the spec of the olympic boats is changed to reflect the latest developments in the domestic fleet, so there is a freeze on change to keep the playing field level and then a jump for the next cycle to keep the class up to date and challenging.  I reckon the T missed a trick here with the adoption of the big rig, they could easilly have made it a one design in the same vane as the laser rather than leaving the tollerances in (and to keep everyone else happy just have a grandfather rule for the old boats for domestic competition only excluding them from the olympics/grade 1 events), or am i being too sensible?

As for the way in which classes like th GP14 have managed with tollerances, i would argue that if olympic medals were at stake that there would be considerably more time, effort and money poured into pushing the limits of their designs.   Even as things are today a new GP is more expensive than a 29er. 

I think it a strength at the T is not One design.  It allows the boat to be tailored to an extent to how the person wants it.

The T should never be a SMOD.  It would be a massive step backwards.

The other thing is that the T is not that much more expensive.  Boats last a long time (I hear that at least one boat at the 2008 games will have been at 2000 and 2004).  The boats last ages.

Boat costs are a small part of the costs of an Olympic campaign. 

JimC et al are right, the T IS one design - exactly like a Fireball is. 

P.S. No development class (eg F18) will ever be selected for the Olympics.  At best (worst) the Tiger might be selected as a stand alone one-design, but as Jim points out that would probably be terrible for the class.

If you want a SMOD cat at the Olympics, how about the Dart 18 - it must be the Laser equivialent of the cat world (in terms of simplicity) and it even has the same designer as the T!

Jim first of all i want to applogise for allowing my self to get carried away and degenerating this discussion into an argument over symantics.  I understand your point of view and while i don't share it i can appreciate where you are coming from and in truth i think more people will agree with you.  However I would like to say that I am fully aware of the miriad of possible variations that can occur when building boats (controlling it is what i do for a living).  So I know that making the most of every variation and using the right combination of them can make huge differances.  There are people who make good money from doing just that, I just wish I was one of them. 

I'd like to see you sit down with the guys from Marstrom and Graham Eeles and try and convince them of that, let alone a group of I14 sailors, because if that was true why have the variation at all?  I've spent my time in "real development boats" and I can tell you that changing sails/masts/foils, let alone hull designs make a big difference, it can feel like stepping into acompletly different class.  Even in a heavilly restricted class like the B14 I sail at the moment the new carbon mast, feels completely different, even though it has the same bend characteristics to within a couple of mm as the aluminium mast it replaces. 

I just think that for the olympics all the boats should be as close to identical as humanly possible so as to keep a level playing field.  The laser, radials and windsurfers are supplied boats, and the 49er could even go that way too, so rightly or wrongly ISAF are moving in that direction already.