2016 Olympic Multihull

[Tornadosail2012]

.........but the Olympics do not start races in over 18knts and I believe cancel above 22knts.

I would love to know where you got this little gem from. I think you will fond you ate mistaken

SImonN,

I might be wrong, but the last OCR that I sailed in, those were the limits. I have not sailed in an OCR in quite a while, so it may have changed since then, but my recolation was that it was getting more stringent on the safety level then it used to be. I sailed an OCR in Marblehead in 1992 where they sent us out in 35-40 knt. winds. We had 80+ Tornados and the damage through both the Tornado fleet and the Star fleet was massive. SInce then they had put upper wind limits in place. I cannot believe that that have back-tracked since then. TTS

 

[Hobie Anarchy]

.........but the Olympics do not start races in over 18knts and I believe cancel above 22knts.

I would love to know where you got this little gem from. I think you will fond you ate mistaken

SImonN,

I might be wrong, but the last OCR that I sailed in, those were the limits. I have not sailed in an OCR in quite a while, so it may have changed since then, but my recolation was that it was getting more stringent on the safety level then it used to be. I sailed an OCR in Marblehead in 1992 where they sent us out in 35-40 knt. winds. We had 80+ Tornados and the damage through both the Tornado fleet and the Star fleet was massive. SInce then they had put upper wind limits in place. I cannot believe that that have back-tracked since then. TTS

Those are Tornado class rules (Appendix C) and have nothing to do with the Olympics. At least for now.

 

[SimonN]

.........but the Olympics do not start races in over 18knts and I believe cancel above 22knts.

I would love to know where you got this little gem from. I think you will fond you ate mistaken

SImonN,

I might be wrong, but the last OCR that I sailed in, those were the limits. I have not sailed in an OCR in quite a while, so it may have changed since then, but my recolation was that it was getting more stringent on the safety level then it used to be. I sailed an OCR in Marblehead in 1992 where they sent us out in 35-40 knt. winds. We had 80+ Tornados and the damage through both the Tornado fleet and the Star fleet was massive. SInce then they had put upper wind limits in place. I cannot believe that that have back-tracked since then. TTS

Those are Tornado class rules (Appendix C) and have nothing to do with the Olympics. At least for now.

And the T rules have never said anything like that. The rule is that no race shall begin in less than 6 knots or more than 25 knots. There is a lower limit at which a started race is abandoned but, surprisingly, there is nothing about a top end limit once the race has started.

As for Olympic rules on when races can and cannot be held, there is no such thing. Some of the classes have limits in their rules which are stuck to at the olympics but most don't.

 

[Tcatman]

.........but the Olympics do not start races in over 18knts and I believe cancel above 22knts.

I would love to know where you got this little gem from. I think you will fond you ate mistaken

SImonN,

I might be wrong, but the last OCR that I sailed in, those were the limits. I have not sailed in an OCR in quite a while, so it may have changed since then, but my recolation was that it was getting more stringent on the safety level then it used to be. I sailed an OCR in Marblehead in 1992 where they sent us out in 35-40 knt. winds. We had 80+ Tornados and the damage through both the Tornado fleet and the Star fleet was massive. SInce then they had put upper wind limits in place. I cannot believe that that have back-tracked since then. TTS

Those are Tornado class rules (Appendix C) and have nothing to do with the Olympics. At least for now.

And the T rules have never said anything like that. The rule is that no race shall begin in less than 6 knots or more than 25 knots. There is a lower limit at which a started race is abandoned but, surprisingly, there is nothing about a top end limit once the race has started.

As for Olympic rules on when races can and cannot be held, there is no such thing. Some of the classes have limits in their rules which are stuck to at the olympics but most don't.

Isaf lowered the tornado low wind range for the Olys. to quite low .... because they thought they would have no racing otherwise... This drove a petition to add a minimum crew weight...which failed. then of course we got the code 0's for going up wind in the light stuff... which made a mockery of it all.

So... what ever a class might want... is irrelevant to the Olympic OA... they write their own rules and you will damn well like em! I kept waiting for an MNA to put a team together with a top helm and a little person (aka midget)....

 

[Tornado_ALIVE]

To say that the tornado is out beacuse it cannot be sailed within the weight range is wrong.

I don't have any irons in this fire either. But, AFIK, the weight range is a design goal not a competition requirement. So, the question isn't can the T be sailed by a crew in the desired range so much as is it faster with that crew weight than it would be with some other crew weight?

The T can be and has been sailed very well at an International and Olympic level with crew weights of 140kg and less, including winning WC's and Golds. That said, they were not mixed crew and strength will play a part. The T as much as I love them, is not the right boat for mixed. All male then yes it is a top contender. My first pick would have to be the Viper, followed by the N17 before the N16. I rate the Viper higher than the N16 because it is a proven boat and already established OD class. IMHO it is also a better looking boat than the N17.

 

[Gp sails]

Got to put a few people straight here, I was at santander yesterday (and all week) I was at the breifing and on the water, I sailed in the last race. ISAF only anounced a manufacturers race at the breifing yesterday morning. There was never a mention anywhere before about manufacturers racing. They asked for it to be sailed at the target weight (below 140kg). They seamed to belief that manufacturers were within the target weights for their boats? (a strange assumption, does this mean optimists are built by 4 foot high 30 kilo people?) During the week the standard of sailors varied enormously and results of all the races really meant nothing. It was only a testing ground for the boats and new sailors.

 

[jimbo_hobie16]

Does anyone know what the retail price of the Nacra 17 will be? roughly?

 

[SimonN]

Today, Isaf proved that:

- most present high level sailors will not be able to train for the Olympics. Not exactly. The one team that met the requirements cleaned up, beating the all male crews who weighed more than the suggested weight range. Carolijn is at the top end of the size of women who compete at the Olympics while Jason will be trying to get selected with a smaller crew (IIRC, their all up weight is 130kgs). They showed that the weight range is correct. To say that because some of the trialists didn't take the right sized crews proves something is only right in as far as it proves their own stupidity! Please explain how your logic is working if you think that trialists taking the wrong sized all male crew tells us that current high level sailors cannot compete. :blink:

- The replacement by asiatic countries is vaporware, and does not fit with emerging countries from africa and south america emerging countries will be even more handicapped than present teams by lack of high level women sailors, this is a kind of discrimination, not speaking of muslim countries. where do you get your stats from, because they are simply incorrect. There are many countries that only have small wome sailors who are currently struggling with the current classes. In fact, those countries also have trouble with the fact their men are too small for the current classes.

- The Nacra 17 and the T were not handicapped by the target weight but by the lack of crew fitting the limits enforced by Isaf No, they were handicapped by stupidity and even with too big a crew, they still got beaten despite the fact THEY took crew who wewre too big and were the wrong gender mix, which should have suited them!

- today was not a fair trial Why? The small guys won! Are you saying that if the T's and N17 had smaller sailors of mixed gender they would have won?

- it is up to Isaf to organize a fair trial, not to the teams, and the minimum is a clear communication, mainly when we know that one same person was at Isaf , works for a manufacturer, and is part of the sailing crew. This is libelous and completely wrong. You need to do your research properly before making such comments. Yes, Carolijn is on certain committees of ISAF but she had nothing at all to do with deciding the spec for the mixed cat and she has no influence on the outcome. in fact, she rather jokingly says that in terms of her own sailing, getting the T back into the Olympics would give her a huge head start over the others. I know that both Carolijn and Bundy get extremely pissed off by the ill founded accusations being made. they have done more than anybody to get cats back into the Olympics and the thanks they get is ill informed bullshit by idiots who are just as bad as the cat sailors who screwed it all up in the first place.

- You are wrong about the old guard, Nacra is a young guard and I love this boat. I don't know why, you always sided with Isaf wrong decisions, and spend your time blaming the sailors.

I am not suggesting the problem is with Nacra. they aren't the ones making all the noise. It is the old Tornado sailors. Yes, ISAF made a wrong decision but I was there and know what went on. The behavior of certain people in the cat community and in particular, the Tornado class, including open threats and ill judged legal action, made it easy for ISAF to throw out the one event that was upsetting everybody. Since then, a group of people, including Carolijn and Bundy, have worked very hard to rebuild those bridges. The people who caused the trouble were thrown out and the new people worked really hard to get cats back in for 2016. As soon as they succeed, the thanks they get is that a small minority of cat sailors stab them in the back, falsly accuse them of conflicts of interest in decisions that theyw eren't even involved with and then those same people continue to be such a pain of themselves that it feels to many that we are back to where we were when cats were thrown out.

You have never attempted to look at this constructively because of one thing - the weight range and overall spec doesn't suit the Tornado.

Final thought about the whole weight issue. If you take the best ever male and female tornado sailors, who happen to be a couple antway (Bundy and Carolijn), their combined weight fits into the ISAF suggested range.

 

[gavparker]

I don't but I'll have a punt - US$34,990 Jim.

 

[drew584]

I have been following this thread because I'm interested in a minor way in what will be chosen for the next Olympic cat.

Are you sure that only the Viper crew meet the standards required by ISAF? A male/female crew of 120-140kg?

If no other teams bothered to meet the ISAF specs, they must be just plain crazy...... EDIT.... unless they deliberately DON'T want their boat chosen. It's been done before.

Well if you had been following the thread you will see that Nacra, and Tornado didn't have the crew. If you read other sites it is clear Hobie and Spitfire didn't have the crews. So, yes confident in what is being stated.

I think the teams didn't bring the sailing team as they were either not told or didn't read the document. Strange only one team managed to have an Olympic sailor and top crew that were mixed and right weight. Maybe they are the only ones to read, but the question needs to be asked.

To say anybody would spend the amount of time and money to attend a trail and not want to be selected is stupid. I seriously doubt Nacra would have gone to the trouble of developing a n17 and then not want it selected.

Have you considered the possibility that since 2B sailing is the AHPC distributor for Europe that they would be involved in the trials? Since Bundy seems to be off playing with AC boats that leaves Caroline. Another question, has anyone considered that the people that are there with AHPC are the only ones that AHPC could bring? How many people work for AHPC that can just drop what they are working on and go spend a few weeks in Europe? Lots of travel involved with that from Australia.

I have no idea if anyone was given inside information, but I would have assumed that, as the manufacturer representative, some sailing could be expected since not all of the teams that showed up to trial the boats have the most experience. I would have thought that you would want to bring people that could help conform to the guidelines presented by ISAF.

Why does there have to be a conspiracy about inside information?

Maybe I'm just thinking too logically though.

 

[PopeLennie]

Not sure why people think that Caroline has inside knowledge that no-one else has. She is on a couple of committees at ISAF, but so are people from other classes. The trials are being run by the Equipment Committee which also includes David Brooks, full-time manager of the Hobie Class.

See http://www.sailing.o...-2012/26218.php

There are conflicts of interests all over the place as you want to have people with the skils and knowledge on Committees, but by definition that means they have some other interest somewhere. As long as people declare them in advance to the Chairman of whatever committee, then it is then up to the chairman to decide what information gets shared, what opinions are taken on board and what are ignored, and when people are asked to leave the room when discussing a particular subject. I would think they would be extra careful in the case of two people on the committee heavily involved in a tender situation. And I doubt that the committee members themselves had much to do with setting up the trials - I would have thought that it was ISAF staff members. Head of ISAF Technical Dept has a PhD in naval architecture or something, so no dummy.

And personally, if I was tendering for something in my business that was to be operated by men and women of a certain size, then I would make sure that I sent people along to demonstrate the equipment that met those criteria, i.e. less than 140kg and with at least one girl in the team. Sort of obvious I would have thought - why else would they ask that the manufacturers to actually send sailors if they didn't want them to sail them? Does anyone know if there lots of blokes sailing in the womens skiff trials? I wouldn't think so - you want to know if girls can sail them. And the same for the multihull - you want to know that a mixed crew of a certain size can sail the boats.

Does anyone have a copy of the requirements sent to the manufacturers? Seems like we are all just guessing what they were told - does anyone know for sure?

And I'm surprised at the amount of grief about the weight by the Tornado class. Because of the extra beam on the boat, you don't need as much weight to keep it down. So the lighest crew weight boats will obviously be the 16 footers, then the F18 will be much higher, but the Tornado would be a lot lighter than the F18. For example, I just looked up the crew weights from the Sydney Olympics. Gold medallist at 137kg and most sailors in the 135kg - 145kg. So at the top end of the range for the Olympic spec, but certainly not outside it and the Gold medallist inside the limit. I would have though that they should be stressing how the extra beam reduces crew weights - their one big design differential. I seem to recall that Randy had to switch crews at the last minute for 1992 Olympics and ended up being well under 130kg, winning a Silver medal.

Then again, they are over there doing Olympic sailing stuff, and I'm just sitting at home on the couch.

 

[JimC]

There was never a mention anywhere before about manufacturers racing.

Class/builders reps have done some of the sailing at all the past ISAF/IYRU trials I have ever heard any detail of. There was, for instance, the notorious incident at the men's skiff trials where Bethwaite dealt with the "49er too difficult to sail" whispering campaign by taking the boat out and doing a kite hoist, gybe and drop singlehanded in 15 knots. You'd need to be astonishingly ignorant of the way these things have been done in the past not to expect it to happen. Bizarre in the extreme not to bring sailors of the required dimensions, and especially odd to bring an all male team: what sort of message does that present?

As for why someone would turn up with a boat they don't want selected - could you gain this sort of publicity any other way for any money?

 

[narecet]

Hmm... well actually I don't expect this is the case, but just to entertain it...

Let's say, and this part will be true, your principal interest is selling the most boats.

Are most going to be planning on sailing your boat within this specified light weight range, or will more be above it? Probably more will be above it.

If you're assuming you may not win the competition, which is better? "We lost because we're slower and not as good," or, "We brought sailors just like you, and they didn't let us show our stuff."

?

There is also however the consideration that it's a lot easier to bring people already working with your company than it is to round up outside people, particularly from a relatively small pool. It could be easy enough to rationalize, Surely they are going to go by what their own sailors find; our sailors are there to assist and advise, not to compete. A wrong assumption apparently, but it could be typical enough to come to if it's a whole lot easier to send people you already have.

 

[Tornado_ALIVE]

Tornado-Cat, I am a very big fan of the T, however you do the class no favours with your posts.

So, if we are seeing T's win worlds and Olypmic medals at 130 to 140 kg with 2 males on board, then how could you say that the 120 to 140 ideal range is not suitable for mixed. Get it through your head, this is the correct range.

The T does have a wide range. You can medal from 130 to 160 kg. A lot of that was also because of the non stricted OD that allowed teams to tailor rigs to suit their wiegh (which I am a fan of). The T does however requier a lot more strenght than a Viper for the crew and less so the skipper to get the most out of it. Therefore despite the T's wide weight range that may narrow with a SMOD rig, it is still not suitable for mixed.

 

[k2mav]

The trials are over, this is done. TC just talk to Roland on how was today and the whole week. You are doing the same others do with the T, disqualifying it.

The sailors report will start to be published on monday, reading all 3 reports from ahpc, nacra and Roland, I already know who won , and it was the one with "RIO" written all over it since day 1 when someone said "Mixed". It never was an 'Olympic boat' discussion, Mixed was the key, but I think the on the water expectations surpassed any previous hypothetical scenario.

And another builder got some good roi too.

 

[Tornado-Cat]

The trials are over, this is done. TC just talk to Roland on how was today and the whole week. You are doing the same others do with the T, disqualifying it.

The sailors report will start to be published on monday, reading all 3 reports from ahpc, nacra and Roland, I already know who won , and it was the one with "RIO" written all over it since day 1 when someone said "Mixed". It never was an 'Olympic boat' discussion, Mixed was the key, but I think the on the water expectations surpassed any previous hypothetical scenario.

And another builder got some good roi too.

If it is not the Tornado I hope it is the Nacra 17, which could very well represent the future, I would be very happy witht that, but I don't know the results yet.

 

[k2mav]

The viper won, the n17 had a good showoff and nacra may commercialize it, the T had a good run for 40 excellent years.

 

[SimonN]

To those who seem to be in the know and/or who were there, if it is the Viper, is that the view of the sailors who tried it or just the evaluation committee? Was it a clear cut win, because it was the best boat or was it a comprimise? Finally, given that the T sailors typified by our friend who has posted so many attacks above, was the event fair and has the right boat been chosen, based on the on the water evaluation?

 

[Tornado-Cat]

Today, Isaf proved that:

- most present high level sailors will not be able to train for the Olympics. Not exactly. The one team that met the requirements cleaned up, beating the all male crews who weighed more than the suggested weight range. Carolijn is at the top end of the size of women who compete at the Olympics while Jason will be trying to get selected with a smaller crew (IIRC, their all up weight is 130kgs). They showed that the weight range is correct. To say that because some of the trialists didn't take the right sized crews proves something is only right in as far as it proves their own stupidity! Please explain how your logic is working if you think that trialists taking the wrong sized all male crew tells us that current high level sailors cannot compete. :blink:

I repeat, if the Viper is chosen, 90% of present sailors will have to stay on the beach, we had a clear desmonstration yesterday where only the informed team was able to compete properly. As you say the other team could not even meet the criteria, even keeping their best sailors on the beach.

- The replacement by asiatic countries is vaporware, and does not fit with emerging countries from africa and south america emerging countries will be even more handicapped than present teams by lack of high level women sailors, this is a kind of discrimination, not speaking of muslim countries. where do you get y

our stats from, because they are simply incorrect. There are many countries that only have small wome sailors who are currently struggling with the current classes. In fact, those countries also have trouble with the fact their men are too small for the current classes.

How can you say that Africans are smaller than Europeans, pure bullshit.

- The Nacra 17 and the T were not handicapped by the target weight but by the lack of crew fitting the limits enforced by Isaf No, they were handicapped by stupidity and even with too big a crew, they still got beaten despite the fact THEY took crew who wewre too big and were the wrong gender mix, which should have suited them!

Were they set up ?

- today was not a fair trial Why? The small guys won! Are you saying that if the T's and N17 had smaller sailors of mixed gender they would have won?

How can a race can be fair when best sailors have to stay on the beach ?

- it is up to Isaf to organize a fair trial, not to the teams, and the minimum is a clear communication, mainly when we know that one same person was at Isaf , works for a manufacturer, and is part of the sailing crew. This is libelous and completely wrong. You need to do your research properly before making such comments. Yes, Carolijn is on certain committees of ISAF but she had nothing at all to do with deciding the spec for the mixed cat and she has no influence on the outcome. in fact, she rather jokingly says that in terms of her own sailing, getting the T back into the Olympics would give her a huge head start over the others. I know that both Carolijn and Bundy get extremely pissed off by the ill founded accusations being made. they have done more than anybody to get cats back into the Olympics and the thanks they get is ill informed bullshit by idiots who are just as bad as the cat sailors who screwed it all up in the first place.

Again, it is up to Isaf to organize a fair trial not to the teams.

- You are wrong about the old guard, Nacra is a young guard and I love this boat. I don't know why, you always sided with Isaf wrong decisions, and spend your time blaming the sailors.

I am not suggesting the problem is with Nacra. they aren't the ones making all the noise. It is the old Tornado sailors. Yes, ISAF made a wrong decision but I was there and know what went on. The behavior of certain people in the cat community and in particular, the Tornado class, including open threats and ill judged legal action, made it easy for ISAF to throw out the one event that was upsetting everybody. Since then, a group of people, including Carolijn and Bundy, have worked very hard to rebuild those bridges. The people who caused the trouble were thrown out and the new people worked really hard to get cats back in for 2016. As soon as they succeed, the thanks they get is that a small minority of cat sailors stab them in the back, falsly accuse them of conflicts of interest in decisions that theyw eren't even involved with and then those same people continue to be such a pain of themselves that it feels to many that we are back to where we were when cats were thrown out.

The fondamental scew up was to think that the T was eliminated as a boat, while the reason was a conflict of personnalities. On the contrary the T was the best rated boat for TV. To see you defending the bad ones, whatever may the reason be, is a shame.

You have never attempted to look at this constructively because of one thing - the weight range and overall spec doesn't suit the Tornado.

Final thought about the whole weight issue. If you take the best ever male and female tornado sailors, who happen to be a couple antway (Bundy and Carolijn), their combined weight fits into the ISAF suggested range.

Which proves that the T has a wide range of weight possibilities, as well as the Nacra 17, while the Viper will eliminate most sailors.

 

Anyway, let us wait now.

 

[Tornado807]

Got to put a few people straight here, I was at santander yesterday (and all week) I was at the breifing and on the water, I sailed in the last race. ISAF only anounced a manufacturers race at the breifing yesterday morning. There was never a mention anywhere before about manufacturers racing. They asked for it to be sailed at the target weight (below 140kg). They seamed to belief that manufacturers were within the target weights for their boats? (a strange assumption, does this mean optimists are built by 4 foot high 30 kilo people?) During the week the standard of sailors varied enormously and results of all the races really meant nothing. It was only a testing ground for the boats and new sailors.

Thanks...that's just what I suspected...people here getting all hot & bothered by race finishes that really are bogus and tring to conclude a boat's performance relative to another.

From what I've seen, the T's are being sailed by Roland and his Wife(?)...they are over the 140 kg range...so the arguement that the T can't be raced at 140 is meaningless. If they are being beaten at 15+ knots (I've raced my T single-handed at such winds & whipped my local F18 fleet...which has the Canadian champion team btw) by a 17 footer...than I highly suspect it's likly crew inexperience. Any top notch helmsman will not win without a top notch crew...I'd even say the crew accounts for more than 60% of a boat's performance at this level.

My understanding of these trails to not to assess overall speed relative to each other...but to assess boat quality/manageablity etc.