Dienstag, April 27, 2010

Boah!!

Reading the following letter from my Scuttlebutt News this morning, I can only agree and I am happy that my main sailing takes place in two boat classes which obviously have not much to do with most of the ISAF regulations and especially the way we are setting our courses and are managing the classes. The Moth and the DN class both are usually sailing windward leeward courses which have to be seen as a big oval due to the speed which the boats are generating once at the windward mark. 3 laps around and one is exhausted. After a break another race and another one. Grand Prix finishes in many events are preventing long periods of waiting for the lapped sailors. Read on and feel free to comment. Kudos to Terry Bischoff!

* From Terry Bischoff, 55 year member of US SAILING:
My (race committee) team was the first team ever to run a Medal Race. We did
this continuously at the Miami OCR through this January. When interviewed
early on, I expressed my doubts as to the real benefits of the race. Sell
more boats, get more people to watch sailing on TV?

How much of those goals has ISAF accomplished by sailing a silly little 25
minute race, at double points. Totally unfair when compared to our
traditional Olympic racing techniques. Anyway, apparently many must feel
this finale has great merit since it continues even with the latest negative
procedure changes from ISAF.

ISAF has a very hidden agenda: keep sailing in the Olympics or most of the
staff will have to go to work in the real world. They will continue that
goal no matter how they turn a great sport upside down. As I've said for
years, the U.S. needs to resign from two obsolete and terribly
anti-productive organizations: the UN and ISAF.

2 Kommentare:

Doug Culnane hat gesagt…

I think that lots of short close races in fast hi performance sailing machines is much more fun than than the total boredom of bath tubs plodding along in a straight line for hours.

But what have ISAF and the Olympics got to do with anything interesting going on in wind powered sport. Just ignore them and put your energy in to what you find interesting.

Giovanni Galeotti hat gesagt…

The IYRU and now ISAF were/are the product of common interests shared by conservative yacht clubs and conservative socialist bureaucracies. The set up might have had its merits at the time of the cold war in demonstrating that a commonality of interests could be found even in the most improbable partners. However to expect a compromise of this nature to produce intelligent forward thinking is highly optimistic. Looking at it that way it is quite easy to understand the limited results achieved for the sport of sailing. But don't give up hope, good stuff can always happen by accident.