SailJuice Blog

Good news today with ISAF’s announcement of an Olympic Commission. This will new group will be tasked with developing and promoting long-term strategy for the sport of sailing at the Olympic Games, something that has been sadly lacking in recent years.

The ISAF Council approved the creation of a new Olympic Commission at the ISAF Annual Conference held in Madrid, Spain last November. The new Commission replaces the Olympic Advisory Board and will be tasked with assisting the Executive in ‘developing, agreeing and promoting a comprehensive vision and strategy of the sport of sailing in the Olympic Games’.

Phil Jones (AUS), Technical Delegate for sailing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and CEO of Yachting Australia since 1997, has been appointed as chairman of the Commission. Jones was critical of the lack of vision or strategy guiding Olympic sailing, so… Read the rest

Thick fog in Qingdao. OK, this picture was from last week, so we can’t blame it entirely on the ISAF mid-year meeting. One of my Qingdao spies has filed this report at the end of a tense meeting of the Events Committee. ‘SailJuice Mole’ says Events made the following recommendations:

1. To re-open the Olympic equipment debate (this was a close vote).

2. To open up the Equipment options in November if so required.

3. To proceed with the World Cup Series, starting with Melbourne in December 08, then Miami OCR early next year. Just the Grade 1 events essentially, with Palma included – exactly as the Scott McLeod proposal – details to be confirmed by the Executive.

4. Multihulls are NOT dinghies.

5. To only have the ISAF Sailing World Championship every 4 years, in light of… 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

Phil Jones, CEO of Yachting Australia, released an official statement this morning stating his organisation’s disappointment with the Multihull being dropped from the 2012 Games.

Last Friday the RYA voiced its disappointment with the outcome, and now Jones makes his case in even stronger terms. He raises doubts over the voting procedure. Many others have already raised concerns over the way the nature of the voting process was altered at the 11th hour, but none with as much authority as Jones.

Bear in mind that even when English is your first language, it’s hard enough to appreciate the subtleties between one style of vote and another. When English is not your first language, it becomes much more difficult to keep up with the whys and wherefores of the change. While Jones doesn’t say it in so many words, the implication… Read the rest