SailJuice Blog

Now, I can’t predict if you’ll cringe, laugh or cry when you read this. But here are the recommendations to Yachting New Zealand from its Olympic Committee.

Note in particular Point 3, which says: “NZL is currently suffering in expensive classes (Tornado & 49er) that are suited to younger (fit) sailors – so we should avoid these.”

Yes, after all, this is the Olympics. We can’t have young and fit sailors in the Games, can we!

I wonder, did Yachting New Zealand consult with any young Kiwi sailors before considering these recommendations? Also I’d suggest the YNZ offices shut down and everyone go on holiday for the week when the Tornado World Championships is going on, just down the road in Takapuna next March.

This leaked document is yet more evidence why some Member National Authorities (MNAs) cannot… Read the rest

A briefing from Des Brennan, CEO of Yachting New Zealand, reveals another National Authority that placed its Estoril vote based on medal-winning potential rather than the wider interests of the sport. (By the way, let’s not mix up our Brennans. US Sailing’s Brennan is called Dean!)

The interesting thing about this report is that it appears Brennan wasn’t entirely happy with the way YNZ voted for the Events in Estoril, but that the organisation was following the recommendations of its Olympic Committee.

“The recommendation by the Olympic Committee was based exclusively on our ability to win medals in 2012,” says Brennan’s report. “The Olympic Committee considered that New Zealand’s weakest events were likely to be the multihull and the skiff. It also considered that match racing instead of fleet racing would better suit our keelboat sailors in 2012.”

Brennan’s concluding… Read the rest

Is the 33rd America’s Cup back on track? Let’s hope so, after Justice Cahn of the New York State Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Golden Gate Yacht Club, rejecting the validity of the Club Náutico Español de Vela’s claim as Challenger of Record.

You can read the judge’s concluding document here…

Perhaps this will mark the end of four painful, protracted months of battling between the billionaires, Larry Ellison and Ernesto Bertarelli. The Golden Gate Yacht Club issued a press statement which on the face of it appears very positive, very progressive, and displays no signs of bitterness. Simply a desire to get on with it.

This is what it said:

The Golden Gate Yacht Club today welcomed a ruling by the New York State Supreme Court that its challenge for the 33rd America’s Cup… Read the rest

As a two-time Olympic medallist, Charlie McKee speaks from a position of enormous authority when commenting on the ISAF vote in Estoril. Whenever I’ve spoken to Charlie, whether about the Olympics or the America’s Cup, he shows a wisdom that goes far beyond that of your average hired gun. Same goes for his brother, Jonathan, by the way, who is currently on his first round-the-world race aboard Estrella Damm, two weeks into the Barcelona Race.

It would be interesting too, to get Charlie’s views on the sorry state of the America’s Cup. He was Luna Rossa’s second-choice tactician in the last Cup, although some may wonder if he would have done a better job than the somewhat wayward tactics of Torben Grael.

Anyway, here’s an excerpt of Charlie’s letter to Scuttlebutt. You’d think as a medal winner,… Read the rest

I’ve been trying to find out US Sailing’s reasons for directing their three representatives on ISAF Council to vote the way they did. Sail Magazine editor in the US, Kimball Livingston, beat me to it. Here’s an excerpt of what Kimball managed to elicit from US Sailing’s top brass, Jim Capron and Dean Brenner, respectively the president and chairman of the organisation.

“The Events Committee put up a slate, but the Council typically does not vote the slate,” Capron says. “That was true in 2007, and once that happens each event is back on the table. Our proposal for 5-5 gender equity was voted down, and soon it was apparent that five of seven events were a shoe-in, no matter how US Sailing voted.

“The windsurfer was in, because the rest of the world wants it. That left keelboats and… Read the rest

I’ve had some requests to incorporate a RSS Feed into SailJuice Blog. Being supremely untecchie, I have not found a way to incorporate that orange RSS logo on to the home page.

So apologies for this lo-tech solution, but see if clicking on this link helps:

http://sailjuiceblog.com/feed

I will look at a neater solution to RSS feeds in the future, but this may involve switching technology, so please be patient!

Andy

The RYA was very quick off the mark with its press release expressing its disappointment with the decisions made in the Estoril vote.

RYA Press Release from Estoril

Now that the dust has settled a little, I called up John Derbyshire, the RYA racing manager who had been present throughout the week-long conference in Portugal. Why such a quick and strong reaction to the outcome?

“There were two ways we could have looked at the Olympic Events,” he says. “We could have considered them from the perspective of where think Britain’s best medal chances lie, or from the perspective of how we can all grow and develop the sport. We felt the Events Committee’s proposed list of classes offered the best option for growing the sport, and that’s what we supported.”

Yet the three RYA representatives didn’t all vote along… Read the rest

Carolijn Brouwer found time from her busy Tornado training schedule in Sydney to write to SailJuice with her views on what happened two weeks ago in Estoril. You could read the frustration between the lines of what Laser Radial sailor Laura Baldwin wrote a few days ago. Here, Carolijn is much more explicit with her feelings. By the way, a quick reminder that Carolijn finished runner-up in the Tornado World Championships this year, showing the men the way round the track in the manliest of weather conditions. So this is a girl who knows what she’s talking about.

“Dear Andy

I was gutted after the ISAF meeting in Estoril. I felt empty, confused and especially useless. I am a member of the Events Committee but at this moment I truly don’t really know what I’m doing… Read the rest

One of the strange things about the ISAF decision was the election of an event – Women’s Match Racing – which is only partially thought through in terms of the logistical implications. This is something we’ll have to find out more about in the coming year. I wrote to Liz Baylis, who heads the Women’s International Match Racing Association, and this is what she had to say:

“Hi, Andy,

Thanks for your note.

WIMRA is extremely excited with ISAF’s decision to include women’s keelboat match racing as one of the ten events for the 2012 Olympic Games.

There are a number of questions that need to be addressed regarding how match racing will fit into the existing Olympic structure and we are currently working with ISAF to develop a plan to help the ISAF Council to answer… Read the rest

Much of the criticism for the way the ISAF vote went has fallen on the shoulders of the US and RYA members of ISAF Council. For those who haven’t caught up yet, the RYA had control over just one vote, that of Chris Atkins, who in the two contentious votes opted for Multihull rather than Keelboat for the Men, and High Performance Dinghy rather than Match Racing for the Women.

As for US Sailing, if you read through recent comments to SailJuice (including from multiple Olympic medallist in the Star, Mark Reynolds) then you will see some statistics which point to just how much more popular the Star is in the USA, compared with the Tornado. So people can have little complaint with the individual members on Council. My problem, as I said yesterday, is with the constitution of ISAF… Read the rest