The mixed 470 is going to be a very interesting test-bed for, in effect, an open event.

It’s a return to how the class was, before the Seoul Olympic cycle. https://twitter.com/worldsailing/status/1336007569127612418

Everything in sailing is about power to weight ratio; the most possible power from the rig, sailed flat, for the least possible weight. Power + flat/weight = speed.

That means maximum righting moments - here essentially the crew on the wire - for minimum overall crew weight.

My gut instinct is you will see split teams: female helm, male crew. More weight, height and upper body power outside the boat for more righting moments, grunting through waves and the spinnaker; less, but often better concentration, at the back of the boat for speed.

Back in 2007, Sailjuice did a quick analysis of the ranges of crew weights.

https://www.sail-world.com/UK/SailJuicecom-Crew-weights-in-the-Olympic-classes/-38778

You can compare and contrast with the more formal one World Sailing did, here.

https://farevela.net/cms/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/WST-Physique-Study.pdf

As you can see, there's downward pressure on the weights of average 470 helms; it dropped by one kg on average, but the lightest was *much* lighter.

However, the lightest male helm is the weight of the average female helm; 56kg.

The average male crew, by contrast, is 72.3kg while the largest female crew was 74kg.

However, the average male crew is *much* taller. Basically, the women are under 1m80, while that's the median for the women.

More height means more righting moments; male crews are on average taller, which means faster for the same weight, because more righting moments means flat with more power, means faster.

[Also, a significant factor is weight distribution; male crews will have larger upper bodies, means more muscle for those loaded-up discussions with the boat when it declines to play nice, and means more weight further out on the wire, especially upwind.]

What you can see in figure 5 on page 6 of the World Sailing study is the pairings in the top 10 crews in the women, compared to the men in figure 3.

In essence, a predictably much bigger gap between helm and crew in the women.

Small helms, allowing larger crews.

There's a limiting, and political, factor here; 470 helms are small men, basically. With overall height and mass rising in, for want of a better word, the Western world, it's getting harder in those countries to get drivers that small and keep a competitive overall crew weight.

However, if you take the average all-up crew weight in men's 470 - 64kg helm, 72kg crew, 136 all-up - and swap in an average female helm - 56kg - you suddenly get room for an 80kg crew.

In fact, you get the largest male crew, at 77kg, 1m94, and save 3kg overall in crew weight.

Now, if you have all that extra weight on the wire, keeping the boat dead-flat upwind, torquing you legally [cough] through the waves, for 2% less weight in the boat, your power to weight ratio is going through the roof. You are going to *fly*.

In marginal conditions, particularly, a crew that can rack up more power for less weight will get planing upwind first, and at that point they'll do a horizon job on those who can't.

So, we may see two classes lose out here; male 470 helms, and female 470 crews. The female crews are roughly the same average as the 49er FX crews, so can transfer straight across if they choose. The male helms, less so.

Now, naturally, I may get this all wrong. Wouldn't be the first time I've called a side wrong in sailing, after all; there are dents in the corners of race courses across Britain and Ireland where I hit the corner as hard as I could and swiftly went down the pan.

It will, however, be a fascinating test in what happens if you have open competition by gender, and how things sort themselves out. It's one to keep an eye on.

Addendum: there is one limiting factor on the size of male crews, in that 470s are a dose to sail. The gap between the boom and the casing is tiny. I could barely fit through it at 16 on Anneliese Murphy's mum's old 470, so there's a limiting element in how big you can go.

@runthinkwrite - on open classes.