SailJuice Blog

Maybe the Danes are getting a little ahead of themselves, but they have also made some suggestions about the Equipment that should be considered if (or is that when?) the Olympic Events revote takes place.

For the women’s high performance boat they suggest a 29erXX. Nothing else.

For the multihull they make the suggestions which you can see below in this snapshop of the relevant submission.

The Danish Sailing Association say the reason why these boats need to be included is that to their knowledge, the 49er and Mistral boards were the most watched sailing events in the Athens Games. They also include a list of all the Olympic sports and the number of TV hours that they each sport was broadcast for the past two Olympiads. Where was sailing? 26th out of 28. Open the… Read the rest

Submission deadline is just about passed, and to date this is the known list of national authorities who SailJuice believes have made a submission to ISAF on the issue of Olympic Events 2012:

AUS

GBR

CAN

DEN

GRE

NED

NZL

SIN

HKG

SWE

FRA

AUT

oh yes, and RUS

Below is a copy of the letter sent by the Russian Federation to ISAF. If anyone knows of any other national authorities who have made a submission relating to this issue, please let us know in the comments section. Anyone surprised at some of the nations that aren’t there, by the way? USA, anyone?

Now, further to the Danish protest over the Women’s Events, here’s the Danes’ submission to ISAF regarding the Men’s Events for the Olympic Regatta 2012…

If you want to download the original submissions in pdf format, here they are:

denmark-men-submission-sailjuice.pdf

denmark-women-submission-sailjuice.pdf

Submission from Danish Sailing Association

Men/Open Events for the 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition

Proposal:

That the decision on the selection of Men / Open Events for the 2012 Olympic
Regatta be re-considered in accordance with 16.1.1(b), and that a run-off vote be
held between “Keelboat” and “Multi-hull” at the earliest available opportunity.

Current Position:

Council decided in November, after a last minute change of the voting procedure, the following
6 events for Men:

• Windsurfer
• 1 person dinghy
• 1 person dinghy (heavy)
• 2 person dinghy
•… Read the rest

After the Australians, now the Danish making their submissions, and repeating the same point about tactical voting skewing the decisions about the Olympic Events for 2012. Dan Ibsen, head of the Danish Sailing Association, has made two submissions, one for the men’s and one for the women’s Events.

First, the women’s submission…

Submission from Danish Sailing Association

Womens Events for the 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition

Proposal:

That the decision on the selection of Women’s Events for the 2012 Olympic Regatta
be re-considered in accordance with ISAF regulation 16.1.1(b), and that a run-off
vote be held between “2 person dinghy (high performance)” and “Keelboat (match
Racing)” at the earliest available opportunity.

Current Position:
Council decided in November, after a last minute change of the voting procedure, the following
4 events for… Read the rest

SailJuice spoke to Phil Jones, to get a bit more background on the reasons for Yachting Australia’s submission to ISAF earlier today, and why he wants to see a revote of the Events for the Olympic Regatta in Weymouth 2012.

Phil, what was your reaction to the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting, and the whole issue of what was ‘urgent’?

We were very surprised at the minutes of the Executive Committee meeting for two reasons:

We were surprised that they ruled they wouldn’t consider submissions of urgency when at that point there were no submissions to consider. I think that was premature. Without the substance of the submissions, it would be very hard, – we would have thought – to decide whether the submissions were urgent or otherwise.

We were also surprised… Read the rest

Phil Jones, head of Yachting Australia, has made his submission to ISAF to get the Olympic Classes vote for 2012 reconsidered as soon as possible. Phil makes a powerful case. Whereas Jerome Pels believes it would be disrespectful for ISAF Executive to question the original vote cast by ISAF Council last November, Phil makes quite the opposite point. To give ISAF Council the opportunity to revisit the vote is the best way of showing respect to the decision making abilities of the 40 members of Council.

Interesting and well-considered ideas here. You can download the original submission and Phil Jones letter to Jerome Pels here, or else you can read the submission which I’ve reproduced below:

phil-jones-letter-jerome-sailjuice.pdf

ya-submission-isaf-sailjuice.pdf

Selection of Events for the 2012 Olympic Sailing Competition

Submission from Yachting Australia… Read the rest

SailJuice recently interviewed Jerome Pels, who took over as ISAF Secretary General at the turn of the year. What a time to be taking over one of the key jobs, just a few weeks after the Estoril AGM! Talking to Jerome, you get the sense he is itching to make his mark on the sport, and his willingness to get stuck into the ‘keel yacht’ debate that embroiled the America’s Cup world for a few weeks suggests he is not scared of getting involved in some difficult issues.

But there must be moments when he wishes he could have taken on this new role a good 12 months later, after the 2008 AGM, when finally the dust will be beginning to settle on one of the most turbulent periods in ISAF’s history. But that isn’t the case, and like… Read the rest

ISAF Secretary General Jerome Pels sent me an email earlier this evening which casts a different and rather more encouraging light on the ‘closing’ clause, the one that has caused such controversy these past days. On further reading of the clause in question, I still can’t see how it could have been interpreted in the way that Jerome intended. The word ‘closing’ has a definite air of finality to it.

But no matter. As Jerome’s email points out, we can at least be reassured that ISAF’s stance on this matter is not as undemocratic as it had first appeared. What concerns me more is Jerome’s assertion that it is not ISAF Executive’s place to question the rights or wrongs of a decision made by ISAF Council. Vested interests clearly had a role to play in the way the Council… Read the rest

Operation Estoril (the bid to get ISAF Council to submit to a revote of the 2012 Olympic Events) enter a critical phase this week. The 15th March deadline for submissions to ISAF is looming fast, and it will be fascinating to see which nations will dare to add their voice of protest to those who have already spoken out against last November’s politically skewed voting process in Estoril.

Nick Dewhirst of the UK Catamaran Racing Association, in association with fellow multihull supporters and co-authors Simon Morgan and Don Findlay, has published an incredibly detailed 38-page analysis of the current situation. I love the report’s ‘branch and twig’ subtitle, shown above.

Inevitably, much of the report focuses on the situation from a multihull perspective, but there are some very broad and far-reaching points made here, which any sailor who cares… Read the rest

Last week’s ISAF Word of the Week was URGENT. Didn’t we have fun with that one! This week’s ISAF Word of the Week is CLOSING. Early signs suggest this week’s word will be even more popular with the SailJuice readership.

Below is an excerpt from Item 7 of the Minutes from ISAF Executive’s meeting in Geneva last month. You can download the full Minutes by clicking this link: isaf-exec-meeting-minutes-feb-08.pdf

Published two days ago, this clause has not gone unnoticed by SailJuice readers, with some of you having already posted your response to this. I’m just back from a trip to Lanzarote to see the Ericsson Racing Team’s preparations for the Volvo Ocean Race, hence the lack of posts here recently, but thanks to those of you who have kept the fires burning at SailJuice… Read the rest