YouthSailing, the RYA and Catamarans

Thanks for the minutes Sprint Bob.

One thing that strikes me as funny is that the RYA declined to comment on the accuracy of the minutes.  In fact not one representative of the RYA was seen taking notes at the meeting.  I tend to read too much into things, but it seems to me from this that they weren't taking it seriously!

I post this bio because it shows the path taken by the current US Trials winner.  John Lovell also came up through the college path to the Tornado, but I cannot find what boats he sailed in his development, but they were mono/dinghies through college.

Charlie Ogletree, 39, calls Columbia, North Caroline and Kemah, Texas, his home towns. He has been a member of the US Sailing Team since 1994. Ogletree learned to sail at age six, when, following the directions of his sailing parents, he completed his first solo voyage in a Sunfish. For three summers he attended a camp that specialized in sailing before heading to New England and a boarding school that was well-known for its strong sailing program: Tabor Academy.

His experience at Tabor, under the guidance of coach Toby Baker, showed Ogletree the importance of teamwork. "Coach Baker instilled in me the invaluable lesson of teamwork – of two people working for the same goal," says Ogletree. He was recruited by Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., for their collegiate sailing program, and was named an ICSA All-American his senior year. While at ODU, coach K.C. Fullmer taught Ogletree not only how to think like a winner, but also how to be a winner. Ogletree recalls, "he showed me that winning and achieving requires a great deal of personal sacrifice."

After graduating from ODU with a BA in English, Ogletree went to work as a sailmaker in Annapolis, before moving to Newport Beach, California, to join Ullman Sails. Twelve years on he is still with Ullman, although now based in Houston. Around the same time that he made the move to the West Coast, he competed in the 1992 US Olympic Team Trials, placing sixth in the 470 Men’s event.

In 1993, he and Johnny Lovell, who he had known from the college sailing circuit, sailed their first Tornado regatta together – the Miami OCR. Not only did they win, they enjoyed themselves. Their subsequent successes, including winning the National Championship, earned them the number one ranking on the 1993 US Sailing Team, and convinced them to pursue an Olympic campaign. .

Today, the pair race their boat Advanced Equities I as part of the T-Squared Racing team. Lovell and Ogletree are three-time Olympians and are now shooting for their fourth Olympics and a gold medal in Qingdao in 2008. At the 1996 Olympic Regatta in Savannah, Ga., they finished eighth out of 20 Tornado teams. In 2000, in Sydney, Australia, they moved up a spot to place seventh overall. The dynamic duo went on to win the Silver Medal at the 2004 Athens Summer Olympic Games.

Ogletree is a member of the Newport Harbor Yacht Club and the Houston Yacht Club

Originally posted by Sprint Bob Hi Jon, Maybe but it does not seem too hard to me to recognise the RYA contributions to this forum. All of them as an alias of some form (of course) but they are taking it seriously enough to be monitoring this forum carefully and inserting the party line at opportune moments. I really hope that they are flexible enough to take some of it onboard and change the party line in time for the ISAF meeting. Cheers Bob

Out of curiousity, Bob, who on this forum is an RYA mole?

The RYA do seem to have been a bit lame at the meeting. The idea that Ts were bad for the media goes against an ISAF report which recommended cats and two other disciplines for their media appeal. It was IMHO a lame report, but for reasons that weren't connected with the cats.

On the other hand, it seems that 50% of the OSG were former T sailors, which is one hell of a good representation considering that cat sailors seem to make up 5% of sailors or less. Has 50% of the board sailed the 49er, Yngling, Star or boards?
 
I see that "UKCRA asked if MNA’s votes and hence influence, were weighted according to size of membership.  RYA replied that this was generally the case since smaller MNAs may share seats when at times RYA may have two seats out of the 40 total."

Anyone know what the point of the UKCRA question was? I ask because if they want the RYA's own policies "weighted according to size of membership" cats and boards will get little attention and the RYA will spend most of its time concentrating on cruiser/racer or offshore yachts, which is where most sailors hang out.

"UKCRA produced a scorecard matrix that had already been used to go through this process and that clearly showed multihulls come out as the top scoring class which best satisfies the requirements of the above criteria."

Interesting - was the scorecard created by an unbiased source? Was it filled in by an unbiased source? Where did the info used to complete it obtained from? When the RYA said it was a good idea, did they mean the concept or the actualisation of the concept?

I'm not implying anything, merely asking questions.

"UKCRA called on RYA to re-build the junior and youth cat program and work on club based catamaran entry programs similar to Team 15."

Great idea. BTW doesn't T15 depend very heavily on support from the industry? It would be good if cat builders would support "C15" as strongly.

Hopefully the UK could lead the way with this programme and people in other countries may follow.....Some of us are too busy copying T15 in another area of sailing to do it!

By the way, at least some cat sailors have said (on the Oz Cat Sailor forum) that they have been signing the petition repeatedly using all their different email addresses. Not good stuff, it really must hurt the credibility of the petition.

Originally posted by Chris 249 Out of curiousity, Bob, who on this forum is an RYA mole?

I have suspected 4 users for quite some time.  They are quite easy to spot and 3 of them have only made one post and the other I am not so sure about.  They are:

Sailor Pete
Barney S
Sad Old Parent
Bigcat (this is the one with more than one post)

Sorry, hope that doesn't come across as harsh.  I just don't want you guys losing sight of the target.