Olympics: Multis are Back.

Pic: Andrea Francolini, we started the comeback campaign with this image, now Multis are Back, definitely. Darren Bundock & Glenn Ashby.
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By Paul Pascoe – Multihulls back in Olympic Regatta
ISAF today voted to return the multihull to the Olympics for the 2016 event in Brazil. While the particular boat to be sailed will not be decided until November next year, this decision gives young multihull sailors confidence that there is a path to the Olympics for them.

The decision includes a Mixed gender event, so one male and one female crew member.

While some people may not be happy with the imposition of Mixed gender, this will allow women to compete in multihulls in significant numbers, something that has not happened in the past due primarily to the strength to weight requirements of the Tornado, the multihull that served us well during games from 1976 – 2008.

So what happens next? The immediate task is for the Equipment Committee within ISAF to set out a plan to choose the particular boat to sail in 2016, and there will be vigorous (read “heated”) debate about the ideal boat over the next 18 months. What we all need to understand is what might be a great boat for club racing may be completely impractical once the blowtorch of Olympic competition is applied to the boat. Professional Olympic sailors will push the boundaries more than any dedicated club sailor and any minor issues with manufacture, class rules, etc will eventually be identified and exploited mercilessly.

To make it clearer on the criteria by which we should possibly judge each boat, I will write an article in the next few days with my personal opinions (as an “insider” as I have been labelled) about what characteristics I feel are important in the selection of the “right boat”.

The longer term task for all of us is to actually start working on the same vote at ISAF in three and a half years time. While the multihull is back for 2016, the decision that the crew must be Mixed is a complete experiment and should be challenged by multihullers. Your representatives at ISAF publicly supported the introduction of a Men’s and Women’s Event, but were well aware from the start that this was a highly unlikely outcome.
In the end, the 5/5 solution with both a Men’s and Women’s in the five disciplines of board, single hander, double hander, keelboat and multihull received 20% of the final vote at the Events Committee and five votes at the Council. However it is reasonable to assume that the support for the 5/5 was more of a vote for the support for retaining a Men’s and Women’s keelboat, rather than a vote for two Multihull Events.

The main issue to obtaining a second Multihull Event is that while there are a large number of women sailing multihulls, there has only ever been two women sailors in nine Olympic multihull events, so very little visibility of women at the top level. However, over the next few years, the number of women sailing multihulls at Olympic level events will increase and we should be in a much stronger position in three and a half years time to have a separate Men’s and Women’s Events.

Finally I would like to take the opportunity to thank the people from the multihull fraternity who assisted in one way or another in getting us back into the game over the last three and a half years. From those behind the initial swift, strong and determined response at the decision to drop the boat, to those who followed, attending ISAF meetings and convincing their MNA of the need to return the multihull. Sometimes “support” means writing emails, researching historical data, making phone calls or getting on an a plane to fly to meetings half way around the world.

However, sometimes “support” also means biting the tongue in order to allow a consistent message to ISAF and sometimes this is the most difficult of all.
All of the various classes did hold the party line by not engaging in public boat vs. boat discussions, making it significantly easier for those of us at ISAF meetings to project a united approach and making it impossible for other classes to attack the multihull. Everyone holding off on the discussion about “which boat”, meant that we were never challenged that we were “too big, too small, too expensive, too heavy, too light”, and eventually got to the point where we were virtually “untouchable”.

This was born out by the fact that every submission put forward for consideration at this meeting included at least one Multihull Event. Whether people were scared of another backlash, or felt that a Multihull Event was good for the sport, it doesn’t really matter – they all felt that if their own submission did not include a Multihull Event, it would not have a chance of being accepted.

Thank you all for your support and I look forward to MNA’s gradually re-invigorating their multihull programs around the world.
From St Petersburg, Russia,
8th May 2011
Paul Pascoe President, ISAF Multihull Commission
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Men’s Board or Kiteboard – evaluation
Women’s Board or Kiteboard – evaluation
Men’s One Person Dinghy – Laser
Women’s One Person Dinghy – Laser Radial
Men’s 2nd One Person Dinghy – Finn
Men’s Skiff – 49er
Women’s Skiff – Evaluation
Men’s Two Person Dinghy – 470
Women’s Two Person Dinghy – 470
Mixed Two Person Multihull – Evaluation