SailJuice Blog

The vote in Qingdao brings to a close a fraught six months for members of ISAF Executive and Council. ISAF president Goran Petersson was outraged at the levels of abuse that had been levelled at him and some of his colleagues, following the controversial vote in Estoril.

As far as Petersson was concerned, justice and democracy were served last November, and that unfortunate choice of wording, the move to ‘reaffirm’, showed just how strongly he and ISAF Executive wanted the Estoril decision to stand. They must be mighty relieved at the way the vote worked out today.

Petersson said that because of the personal abuse that some members had been subjected to, the voting procedure earlier today would take place under a secret ballot. This is an unfortunate, but understandable, move. It makes individuals a good deal less accountable… Read the rest

This weekend is crunch time in Qingdao. All multihull fanatics wait to see what ISAF Council decides this weekend in China, if indeed the Olympic Events for Weymouth 2012 will come up for reconsideration.

ISAF’s decision not to publish the 15 submissions on this topic from national authorities and class associations was disappointing, another sign that the Federation would prefer this whole nasty business to go away without further debate.

Anyway, hopefully the 40-odd members of ISAF Council have informed themselves of the many issues that swirl around this complex debate. And hopefully the individual members will bear in mind their statutory duty laid down in ISAF’s own regulations. That is, to act in the best interests of the sport as a whole, rather than putting nationalistic medal hopes before any other consideration, as we saw in Estoril last November.… Read the rest

A day for open letters, this one from former ISAF president Paul Henderson to his successor Goran Petersson. Henderson’s letter, published in Scuttlebutt.com, will offer some comfort to Petersson in the wake of all the criticism levelled at ISAF since Estoril.

Henderson suggests that sailing is not really under any threat of being thrown out of the Games. This may be true, but does this mean that ISAF should only do the minimum required to keep the IOC happy? Or when it has opportunities to pull the sport more into line with the IOC’s wishes, it should seize them with both hands? It won’t surprise you to know that I subscribe to the latter theory.

As the previous ISAF president, Henderson is bound to defend the workings of ISAF Council. Otherwise he would have changed the process. It’s not as… Read the rest

The RYA has stuck its head above the parapet, and fired off a letter of protest to Goran Petersson, President of ISAF.

Battle has commenced.

It’s now a matter of how many other National Authorities the RYA can take with it. Presumably Rod Carr and his troops have not done this without a good deal of consultation behind the scenes.

We can expect Yachting Australia to throw its full support behind this letter, and then it’s a matter of watching how many more will follow. Remember the Just Five to Get a Revote article in SailJuice a few days ago. That’s all that’s needed – in theory – but the RYA will be hoping and expecting that good deal more than five follow them over the top and into battle.

Here’s the letter… Read the rest