A beautiful Olympic Tornado

A few days ago, I found the long lost photo of me on the trapeze of Rick's beautiful wood veneer Olympic Tornado catamaran (KC 291). The photo was taken during the 1988 Royal Vancouver Yacht Club Waves regatta, by the professional Sea Snaps photographers (from their hard-to-miss pink twin-hull motorboat). Don't look too closely at the jib luff as there are some wrinkles from the halyard not tensioned enough. Otherwise, this is a beautiful photo of a fine sample of one of the most elegant high performance sailboat classes, taken on a gorgeous Vancouver summer day.

The Olympic Tornado was designed by Rodney March in 1967. Its Olympic debut came in Montreal 1976 and the last time it was raced in the Olympic was 2008. Sadly, there was no multihull racing in London 2012. The Nacra 17 will be the new Olympic multihull class in Rio 2016. The Nacra is no Tornado, not even close, but I suppose I should be happy that there is a multihull class in the Olympic.

I should also have in my possession, a photo of me sailing aboard Reigh's blue KC 219, taken by John Cross. It has been misplaced following four moves in three different cities and two countries over the last decade. I will scan it when I find it.

Enjoy!