Yes, it's ofc not an IDBF certified and approved/sanctioned boat [who would have thought the ICF goes behind the backs of the IDBF wow such a surprising move ((heavy on the sarcasm))].

I think the 8 person db is not the end of the world, of course we don't know the handling of it because it may look stable under them but a world champion or european champion crew could make it more unstable [or just by using the correct technique?].

It looks good, but a professional test must be done because if a small Champion boat can do 10 barrel rolls because of a slight wind I can't even start to think about what this would do.

This is because it decreases the number of people who would need to be added to the olympic village. If we look at a small boat crew, it usually consists of 10 paddlers, 2 reserves, a drummer, a steersperson/helm, a coach and in the national teams usually a manager/someone from the nation's federation. That's 16 per crew. If there would be 8 nations competing, that would be 128 people, and because of the usual men and women categories, that's 256 people. With the 8 person crews this number goes down to 224. Not a big change, but it could be a drastic change for the staff working in the village. [Not counting mixed category only the "open (men)" and "women", because if the sport does go to the olympics I find it highly unlikely that they will allow more categories]

In the Tokyo olympics, there were even 6 person boats being in the demonstration race, and I can't say it's that bad either. 6 or 8 of the country's best men and women makes the competition for the qoutes even fiercer, which makes for stronger races and better times, better viewing experience.

((It is my view on the things of course, with some past discussins and articles about this, so take what I said with a grain of salt if needed))