CT, It's not that I dismiss other nautical designs, (for fargo truck's sake)
It sometimes seems like you are.
it's just that there has been an imbalanced whinge
but who can claim the high ground on being balanced? How can you know that the pro-multi crowd are any more balanced than the pro-mono crowd?
Look at the disagreement RHough and I have over whether the DoG should be read - why is his view more balanced than mine? Neither of us have definitive evidence, we are only drawing implications.
from stain dyed monohullers that the AC has to return to what they selfishly
The use of terms like "selfish" is a classic example of what I'm ranting about. One can be against multis in the Cup for entirely selfLESS reasons.
One does not have to be "selfish" to feel that a certain event should remain in the type that it was historically raced in.
One does not have to be "selfish" to feel that a certain major event should be raced in the type of boat that most sailors sail.
One does not have to be "selfish" to state that one prefers to watch certain types of craft.
One does not have to be "selfish" when one points out that most other major sporting events use equipment that has its performance drastically reduced by rules, just as the AC monos are.
The fact that you impute dishonourable motives into reasonable viewpoints is the sort of thing I'm talking about.
think AC racing should be about, eg. the boring and stuck DVD, won't tack,
That sort of stuff comes from the "other side" too; monohulls or slow boats are boring, there is no tactics unless you have to sail high angles downwind, faster boats need faster reactions, etc.
The most stuck DVD in sailing, IMHO, is the 'fast boats are better and the future' one, which fails to recognise that these days it's the fast boats that have often lost more market share than the slow ones. We used to regularly get 200-cat fleets - they are gone now.
gutless ******** won't sail in tsunami like I can,
From all accounts, there was certainly one side at the last AC trying to sail just in light winds. But comments that Cup boats are too fragile have been said since a decade or so before the J Class, at least. And to some extent, it may have been a reaction to the fact that the DOG boats were set up for light winds and therefore they went even better than they would have if they were more all-rounders. Yes, a tough 90 foot multi would still have been incredibly quick last week, but it wouldn't have been quite as quick as DoGzilla.
Sure, the IACC monos were light-weather craft - AND THEY COPPED LOTS OF ABUSE FROM IT. When One Australia sank it became an object of amazement and scorn from Seahorse to the TV news. There's a difference between abusing light wind boats (whether mono or multi) as some people may have been doing, and abusing multis per se.
could be sailed in Optimists, etc.etc. Respect doesn't come into it.
Yeah, that's the problem - respect doesn't seem to come into it when considering people who happen to like older monos.
Everyone knows there are wonderful skills portrayed by sailors in all class types. However there are some spoiled, vociferous, older brats sailing monohulls out there who are used to having their own way and they totalitarian-like demand the AC return to their dogmatic viewpoints.
Why are their statements that an event traditionally sailed in monos should stay that way any more "totalitarian" and "dogmatic" than the wish that the Texel organisers have that their cat event should stay as a cat event; that the Tour de France organisers have that their event should stay in conventional bikes; that the national offshore multi champs should stay in multis; or that the A Class should stay off foils?.
Again your very terms seem to be loaded and derogatory to others who simply have different views.
Hopefully common sense will prevail, times have changed ...
Yeah, times have changed.
I picked up an old Modern Boating the other day, from 1972. The catamaran column said that the Victorian Yachting Council census revealed that 1/3 of boats being sailed in clubs were cats.
These days, the cat sailors are vastly outnumbered by the leadmine sailors. The biggest cat race around here once got over 300 entries - these days there's as few as 14. I don't like that - the main trophy used to be the memorial for my dad, a cat pioneer who died on that course, possibly in that race, so I have feelings for the event.
However, the historical figures point that the multi fleet is NOT growing strongly, if at all, over the long term. That is despite the fact that multi sailors (or ex-multi sailors) have often had major positions of power in sailing here (running the national sailing federation, committee of the CYCA, publisher of the leading sailing magazine, ad manager of the leading boating magazine, etc etc)
Similarly, it's hard to see that multis are taking over offshore, when one looks at entry numbers.
Windsurfers have suffered the same thing - we used to get 600 to some races, now we get 60. Meanwhile, the numbers in many slow-boat classes (Dragons, Lasers, Toppers, Optis, IRC cruiser/racers, etc) are looking very strong.
Times have changed, but they may have changed AWAY from fast craft and maybe we should learn from that instead of continually ignoring the fact.
I am NOT saying that this is a good thing. I am pointing out that it is the historical truth.
Personally, my gut feeling is that the vehemence and fury that some multi sailors use when they attack mono sailors is a large part of the reason that multis aren't doing to well. Windsurfers have done the same thing - we adopted a tone of superiority over boat sailors for years and failed to see our own flaws, and it really bit us hard.
Personally, I'd agree that times have changed, accept that they have changed towards slower boats, and try to understand why instead of sneering at their proponents. That's a lot of the reason that I've recently switched from sailing development-class boards, Int Canoes and F16 type cats to sailing slower one designs - and I'm still loving my sailing.
. but I'm not holding breath.
