No multihull at the London Olympics
In a vote that surprised the entire yachting world and shocked at least half of the sport-sailers among us, the ISAF voted not to include any kind of multihull racing for the 2012 Olympics. They did choose the following categories:
- One person dinghy – men
- One person dinghy heavy – men
- Two person dinghy – men
- Two person dinghy high performance – men
- Windsurfer – men
- Keelboat – men
- One person dinghy – women
- Two person dinghy – women
- Keelboat, match racing – women
- Windsurfer – women
So no Tornado, Hobie Cat or F40 in the first Olympics in a long time that almost certainly will be windy. The best of the multihull men have about 4 years to retrain them on for instance a 49er. But imagine you are a top-20 female Tornado sailer at the moment. What are the options for them? Go back to 470 or Yngling? I don’t think a lot of the ladies would like that…
In a world where the Olympics are about spectacular sports that are known to attract a lot of TV viewers, I think it’s a strange move to ditch the multihull and keep “old” classes like the Finn and the 470.