Class Selection for 2016

I believe it's about having action in our sailing, we need to have boats which attract the media and good sponsors.

It's also about keeping the sport close to shore - having seen the ticket allocations for London 2012 it's a joke. There should be people lining each side of the bank watching the racing like the Extreme 40 Series or the Tornado Class's Speed Sailing http://www.speedsailing.org/ which was a great success in Travemunde, Germany.

Once you have the spectators the sponsors will come and then it's about starting on time no matter what the weather conditions. If it's 2 knots of wind then we need boats which can still sail. The TV won't come back if races don't start on time.

Just my thoughts......

personal my opinion is that ISAF has to many french in the top jobs and the french are the best in 470's so they are clearly looking out for themselves
can you imagine the uproar in Britain is the finn was scrapped?

as for a women's skiff i believe the lack of feeder classes for performance boats has been the problem until recently
lets be fair the aussie's and kiwi's are the best skiff sailors in the world and frankly we are nowhere near them.
I believe sale of 29erXX would increase if it was an olympic class
the only reason people see the XX as a failure is because in comparison to the 29er which is the feeder class for the olympic 49er class so therefore gains more attention in the eyes of sailors
also why would women buy a skiff if there was no top competition
for them to compete in?


i think we need to make olympic sailing more spectator friendly, just look at what they are trying to do with America's Cup
my opinion scrap the finn for something sportier like Musto Skiff or something with a bit of thrills and spills like an A class
as for 470's drop them for something at the cutting edge of the sport like c class cats maybe a bit extreme but we need something which is better to watch maybe RS 800 or something
the laser can be boring to watch and also sail but there is little that can be done as it is relatively new to the olympic classes

on another point maybe team racing in something fast like 49ers would be ace to watch as a spectaor

don't know if anyone agrees but olympics sailing needs to change

I agree that the 29xx should be made an olimpic class, I mean why should the men have all of the fun in the 49er. The 470 I think is in need of changing for something a little more entertaining. A high performance single hander would be fun, (international canoe, moth or rs 700) however I am very biast and deffinatly think that the laser is a good choice for a singlehander as it gives people who maybe dont like to sail other stuff (like the rs700) something to have a go at and race top sailers.

ISAF Events Committee recommending following slate of Olympic Events for 2016 to Council for the big vote in the next couple of days:

- Board and/or Kiteboard men & women-RS:X/Kiteboard-evaluation
- One-person dinghy men-Laser, women-laser radial
- 2nd one-person dinghy men-Finn
- Two-person dinghy (spinnaker) men & women-470
- Skiff men-49er, women-equipment evaluation
- Two-person multihull mixed-equipment evaluation

So no keelboats whatsoever (Star and Women's Match Racing), a women's skiff TBD, and a decision between RS:X and kiteboards.

Remember this is only the ISAF Events Committee recommendations - the Council can choose (and have done in the past) to completely ignore this!

I'd be suprised if that slate gets through Council. Whilst I don't believe there's a good solution I think it could be better than that. And I fear no keelboats will doom paralympic keelboats at some future games.
It feels like a first world countries slate to me, and one of the problems sailing has is that its already seen to be too first world... But I don't know what the latest steering coming from the IOC is, and the IOC changes its mind about every six months...

Edited by JimC - 05 May 11 at 6:34pm