Catamarans, the Olympics, the Swedish Archipelago

The Tornado is out of the Olympics. I don't know of any sailor that doesn't think it's a dumb idea. At the Quindao Olympics, while the Tornado's were handling the breezy and lumpy medal race with aplomb, the 49'ers were doing their version of the Monty Python Twit of the Year Race (he's up, he's down and, although I've sailed in many a breezy race with multiple capsizes, I expected more of the Olympic medal race).

Well here is my suggestion to the Cat crowd. Don't attempt to reenter the Olympic Circus using the old format. You've developed a far more appealing race format; long distance, multi-stage day racing with many stops, in high speed two man cats. We have the Tybee 500 in the U.S and in Europe there is the Swedish Archipelago Raid.

Just imagine a five day marathon catamaran race in the Olympics with multiple stops up and down the host countries coastline. A very appealing sailing competition to capture the attention of the masses.

Here is a YouTube of Day 1 of the 2009 Swedish Archipelago Raid.




P.S Steve Clark had this idea a while back that the Olympic Finn competition should be a one race, 24 hour long marathon. I think a sailing marathon works better with the cats.