Olympic 'finals' proposal

Olympics

   Calm down, boys!
Olympics  ..... It's only a game after all   
I'm convinced that many other sports had to compromise for the Olympics at some point. I know that some disciplines in equestrianism have been totally transformed by the Games, and the subsequent format adopted by all riders all over.
If there's a new set of rules - simpler, more immediately understandable by the non-sailing crowds, designed exclusively for the Olympics - would that be such an atrocious sacrilege? I don't think wearing pink tutus is the way forward, but getting public interest and shedding the image of an elitist sport would be a great idea.
In the meantime, you boys.... play nice! 

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Black no sugar Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 04 Dec 04 Location: Somewhere between Brighton and Lancing Online Status: Offline Posts: 3941	Post Options Post Reply Quote Black no sugar Report Post Quote Reply Topic: Olympic 'finals' proposal Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 12:07pm
	Calm down, boys! Olympics ..... It's only a game after all I'm convinced that many other sports had to compromise for the Olympics at some point. I know that some disciplines in equestrianism have been totally transformed by the Games, and the subsequent format adopted by all riders all over. If there's a new set of rules - simpler, more immediately understandable by the non-sailing crowds, designed exclusively for the Olympics - would that be such an atrocious sacrilege? I don't think wearing pink tutus is the way forward, but getting public interest and shedding the image of an elitist sport would be a great idea. In the meantime, you boys.... play nice!

Chris 249 Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 10 May 04 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2041	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chris 249 Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 11:47am
	"So chill man, sounds like Chris 249 needs a ride on something fast!" Well mate, I've sailed against the Mothies who have won the last 5 worlds.....and normally gone faster. No credit to me, I was on faster gear. Just saying that just going faster than a Moth (which really is not all that hard) means very little. And that's not even counting the really fast singlehanders. Moths are great boats, but if you think Moths are super-duper fast you really need to get out and try an 18' skiff, 16' skiff, Tornado, F16, slalom board, speed board, raceboard, Canoe, etc etc etc etc etc. The boat I race most is proportionately faster than a Tornado. This is not a diatribe from a Heron sailor. But what you and I happen to prefer to sail ourselves is not necessarily what is good for the sport to project and promote. "The Y&Y nationals attendace shows that there are more people racing so how can the sport as a whole be going down the plug hole becuase of high performance boats?" Sailing's not going down the plug hole because of high performance boats. All I'm saying is, why diss the boats that ARE popular and say that fast boats are the future of the sport (as you implied) when (as you say) more people are racing now slow boats are more popular? Sailing WOULD probably go down the plughole if people stopped sailing slower boats, the low numbers in fast classes (including those I sail) proves that pretty well. "Hey and don't mix up reducing local numbers with types of boat it's more to do with general economic situations, fun costs cash" WRONG....here, for example, it can be fairly cheap to run a real skiff because of club support. For example I've been offered free 16 and 18 skiffs in good condition. 12' skiffs (real ones, with 500ft kites) are also offered free at times. But lots of people don't bother to take up the offer of skiff types even when they are free or cheap. Instead they pay out real money to sail other boats. So it's NOT always got anything to do with general economic situations or cash. Kites v boards.....kites are slower than boards. Therefore speed can't be the only lure. Secondly, do you ahve anything to show that kites are (a) actually more popular than boards or (b) anything like as popular as boards where before they followed the high-performance route?? "So; lets make the Olympics represent the peak of the sport and not dumb it down ... just like all the other sports." That means you reckon that slow boats are NOT the peak of the sport and are 'dumb'. I assume you're not saying that Laser, Star and 470 sailors are "dumber" or less skilled than 49er sailors are you????? Any IQ tests to back it up? Hmmmm, let's see....FD, 470 and LAser sailors moved into the old Pro 18 circuit and beat all but one of the skiffies. FD, 470, 420, Laser, Mistral etc sailors move into 49ers and Tornadoes and get into the medals........ So if "slow" boat sailors are so dumb why do they do well in fast boats? Why is a Laser sailor champ less skilled and dumber than the champ of a high-performance singlehander like (say) the International Canoe? What is the fastest singlehander? A Class. Where do these non-dumb guys from the peak of singlehanders (if fast means good and smart) finish when they move to dumb, non peak classes like Lasers? Down the back, in point of fact. So if the fast class guys are so smart, why do they get beaten by the dumbies from slow classes? OK, boats that fall over may be good to watch. It didn;t help the pro windsurfing circuit. It didn't help the 18s. It hasn;'t helped the Hobart. The ORMA 60 tri circuit is rarely all that healthy. Volvo Ocean race gets good TV and there are rumours the shrinking fleet may kill it. So where is the proof that what makes good TV will actually help increase the popularity and general health of sailing?????????? If you say knocking slow boats and pushing the fast ones onto TV will actually help sailing, can you please show us some proof? Please? Edited by Chris 249

Tornado_ALIVE Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 07 Nov 04 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 611	Post Options Post Reply Quote Tornado_ALIVE Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 11:22am
	For exciting visually apealing racing..... Maybe the ISAF should take a look at the Volvo Champions Race series...... Get the 2 most exciting Olympic classes (Tornado and 49er), invite the elite sailors, major sponsors, media / TV coverage, cherry picker over the water filming, grand stand on shore for spectators and a bottom mark 40 meters from the shore. Volvo Champions series curtesy of Tornado guru Roland Gaebler 35.000 Spectators celebrated the first 2004 Volvo Champions Race in Bavaria. Bundock/Howden win first Tour Stop. One thing was crystal clear when the first 2004 Volvo Champions Race ended this Sunday in Starnberg, Bavaria: 35000 spectators have seen the biggest sailing festival ever happening at Lake Starnberg. Three days of action-packed racing with rounding marks not more than 40 metres away from the audience at the shores created a unique stadion athmosphere. Said three times Olympic Champion Jochen Schumann who lives around 40 kilometres away from the venue in Penzberg and visited the event. "it's been a great event and perfect advertising for our sport.I really enjoyed being there". It's been an exciting last day as the fight for podium places was not decided before the last race in the Tornado Class. It were then four times World Champion Darren Bundock and his British crew Will Howden, Tour winners of last year's first Volvo Champions Race Series to start into the new Tour with another win. Austria's Olympic Champions Roman Hagara and Hans Peter Steinacher came second ahead of Sydney's Bronze Medallist Roland Gabler and his crew Gunnar Struckmann. The tricky conditions on Lake Starnberg offered more stable and stronger winds up to five Beaufort on the last day. Nobody and nothing could stop the young German brothers Pit and Hannes Peckolt to win the 49er event with a clear lead over their fellow country men and reigning European Champions Marcus Baur and Max Groy. Last year's Volvo Champions Race Tour winners Peter and Soren Hansen from Denmark had a great last day with a third and a first thus securing third place overall. Thomas Hanel, Director of Public Affairs & Events for Volvo Car Germany, said in his final round-up, "already day one has much more than fullfilled our expectations. Saturday and Sunday have been sensational. The audience is enthusiastic about our new race format. I guess we can really claim that there is no more spectator friendly sailing series in Germany at present than the Volvo Champions Race". That the people really liked the close race action, the 30 world class teams from ten nations and the attractice shore programme with entertaining shows of TV star cook Alfons Schuhbeck, long party nights with life bands and Saturday night's amazing music firework is also underlined by a few impressive numbers from the party tent: Schuhbeck's team served more than 6000 hot meals, 3000 sausages and more than 2500 litres of beer. The Volvo Champions Race in Starnberg, Bavaria is the first of three Stops of this year's Volvo Champions Race Tour. Following are the Volvo Champions Races in Rostock (2 - 4 July) and Travemunde (24 - 26 September) right after the Olympics.
	www.formula18alive.com

Cheeky Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Groupie Joined: 05 Aug 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 59	Post Options Post Reply Quote Cheeky Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 9:40am
	Yo! Rick's got what I was sayin! Man, I'm not knocking the dudes in blazers they get there own thrills but they ani't doin the 100 in 9.5secs. What I'm saying is that high performance sailing ani't for everyone, in fact its only for the best and watching it don't stop me or others going sailing (and it didnt stop me from running the hundred to a dam high level), which was kind of a few peoples arguments on here. In fact it draws people closer to the flame. So chill man, sounds like Chris 249 needs a ride on something fast! joke dude before it gets messy! And whats all this about numbers. The Y&Y nationals attendace shows that there are more people racing so how can the sport as a whole be going down the plug hole becuase of high performance boats? Yeah attendance levels change but, but dude all the windsurfiing cats are doing kite surfin! they want bigger AIR!!!!!!! Rock On! And man I don't want to drag classes into this, but the UK Cherubs have gone up 25% in membership in the last 2 years, and they are high performance fall over boats. So lets get with the programme. Anyway lets bolt on those cameras and rock in the Final race. Crash and burn,, baby! Hey and don't mix up reducing local numbers with types of boat it's more to do with general economic situations, fun costs cash. But thats got nothin to do with the 5 rings.

Guest Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Newbie Joined: 21 May 04 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Guest Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 8:38am
	Olympic sport is for the elite; the fact that the types of people sailing 49er is narrow is no different to the fact that there are no 20st fatties winning the 100m. Sailing can be a broad church due to the range of differnt boats accomodating different physical abilityis and skills but the peak of the sport will always have a level of natural selection. So; lets make the Olympics represent the peak of the sport and not dumb it down ... just like all the other sports. Fast tippy boats are more fun to watch ... that can't be argued with. Rick

49erGBR735HSC Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 30 Mar 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 1991	Post Options Post Reply Quote 49erGBR735HSC Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 1:09am
	I have to agree that criticism coming from different areas of the sport to another side is highly detromental. I believe it is a totally ignorant attitude to have and "in-fighting" within any sport has to be put to one side to allow for it to grow in a proper direction. Even although I class myself as a skiff sailor, I also love sailing traditional classes, yachts and multi-hulls. I have gained a lot more knowledge about the sport through not being tunnel visioned. Any sailing is good, so why try and make out it isn't just because it's something which may be unfamiliar to you. I recommend to anyone who has tunnel vision, try every area of the sport which you can and keep an open mind.
	Dennis Watson 49er GBR735 Helensburgh S.C Boat Insurance from Noble Marine

Chris 249 Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 10 May 04 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2041	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chris 249 Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 12:44am
	Fair comment Dennis, but the first post in this thread that raised the question of classes was the following one (edited for brevity). "the BBC used to do a pretty good job of televising Ultra 30's and 18 foot Skiffs a few years back. Perhaps what we need to do is revise the classes sailed to make it more visually exciting and reflect what is happening in the sport. We could probably benefit from ceasing to use boats designed in the 50's and embracing modern designs. Perhaps the adoption of a single design of foiling Moth for the lightweight singlehanders, Musto Skiffs for the bigger boys, 49ers and 18 foot skiffs for mixed events etc? Dress it up however you like it, watching a Finn isn't exciting." So the criticism of classes (as so often happens) came from the high-performance "side" first. Of note, fully-televised skiff sailing with ratings (allegedly) greater than that of the cricket tests was around years ago. The 18s crashed and burned badly after that. Like the windsurfing pro/Hawaii wavesailing era, what the 18 series showed was that sailing was an exciting sport for fit, expert, mature-age highly-experienced males who wanted to crash and burn. IE the message is that sailing is only the sport for a small % of the population. We have something like 150,000 live spectators on teh headland for the Hobart start. Live TV. And the fleet is dwindling. Just like the 18s did. Just like "high-performance" windsurfing did. There's a national survey here which comes to the conclusion that there is basically not a strong correlation between the amount of publicity and sponsorship a sport receives, and the number of participants. PS here the traditional skiff classes have been around much LONGER here than the other classes, and the skiff classes have the backing of clubs that often provide free storage, beer/boat money, subsidies for travel, help arrange sponsorship, and can just hand you over a skiff. Yet the long term trend shows that the skiffs are in retreat - many clubs, even skiff clubs themselves (Balmain, Greenwich, Abbotsford, Hunters Hill, DAC, Yarra Bay, Gosford, North Harbour etc) have lost their skiffs over the past couple of decades. The 18s have died in NZ (although they are trying to revive them), WA, Queensland which had them for many, many decades.So even when it's not a question of the skiff classes being newer, they still remain less popular than other boats. This is a complete bummer and we are a world away, but it's also a fact. I bring it up not to diss skiffs, but to point out that the minority status of skiffs in some areas may not be due to their recent introduction, as they are a minority class even where they have been for 100 years. Edited by Chris 249

49erGBR735HSC Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Really should get out more Joined: 30 Mar 05 Location: United Kingdom Online Status: Offline Posts: 1991	Post Options Post Reply Quote 49erGBR735HSC Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 12:25am
	Throughout this thread there has been a lot of criticism of skiff sailing being detromental to the sport. I have to disagree. Within Scotland, the racing classes which are showing most growth are skiff classes such as the 49er and MPS. Yes, there may be not as many of the quoted skiff classes as the traditional boats but you have to consider that the newer classes have not been around for as long as the others and will obviously not be as abundant as classes which have been around for many decades. The skiffs also have been percieved to demand high ability and physical fitness for sailing so will not cater for as much sailors as the easier classes to sail. If you don't have such classes for people to aspire to, you will eliminate the emphasis for people to develope their sailing abilities to such a high level. When the Olympics were being televised in 2004, there was always discusion about the racing coming from pupils at the sailing school I worked at. The young kids could identify with sporting heros in the sailors which we put forward. Even people that I knew who had no interest in the sport were discussing the 49er racing with me. From that sort of perspective, the coverage must have been successful as it allowed "non-sailors" to understand it. I don't think it's a question of is television coverage what our sport needs? Our sport needs more television coverage!
	Dennis Watson 49er GBR735 Helensburgh S.C Boat Insurance from Noble Marine

Chris 249 Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Visit Member's Homepage Really should get out more Joined: 10 May 04 Online Status: Offline Posts: 2041	Post Options Post Reply Quote Chris 249 Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 02 Nov 05 at 12:23am
	OK Cheeky, how do the numbers in the Moths back up your theory that we need to "evolve"???? How strongly is the class growing? Not very. Is it growing as quickly as (say) Radials? No way. What about Toppers? The most popular sort of Moth in the UK is the 1930s one design British Moth. The most popular sort of Moth worldwide is the 1960s one design Europe Moth. The most popular Moth in the US and France is the 1960s Classic Moth. The most popular sort of Moth in New Zealand is the 1950s one design NZ Moth. The most popular single type in the class' other main stronghold (NSW Australia) is the 1970s style scow Moth AIUI. So even inside the Moth class, the very wonderful and amazing high-performance International Moth is a minority. Given that the frozen old one design Moths are much more popular than the high performance International Moths, how can you say sailing "has" to evolve towards higher performance? How much has evolution towards higher performance helped the Moths? When I was a kid Mothie we had something like 300 registered Moths where I live. Now it's about 30..... Is that the evolution you reckon we "need"??? I'm not knocking performance boats, I'd love to get more people to sail the high performance classes I'm into (faster than the average Moth by some way). BUT the simple fact is that most people do NOT sail performance boats, do not WANT to sail performance boats, will NOT sail performance boats. That applies even when 16' and 18' skiffs are being given away. Look at the Y&Y nationals attendance charts over the past 5 years or the past 30 years, it's the slow boats that are actually doing better and no amount of bluster will change that. You can insult people as much as you want with the blue blazer talk, but those are the facts. These people are not idiots, they are not cowards, they are not insecure (racing a big Laser fleet is much tougher on the ego than racing a small fleet in high-performance boats), they are not bad sailors, they just like what they like for damn good reasons. If the high-performance classes stopped throwing around insults and actually started looking and listening to people who sail the popular classes, we may actually start growing again. But I know insulting them is easier and more fun...... The fact that people from performance classes continually attack the classes that most people sail is probably THE biggest problem facing sailing. Apologies to any Mothies, they're damn wonderful boats, and like the classes I sail could and should become much more popular IF they don't insult those who sail the popular classes. It's not the best sales method, is it? Edited by Chris 249

Cheeky Send Private Message Find Member's Posts Groupie Joined: 05 Aug 05 Online Status: Offline Posts: 59	Post Options Post Reply Quote Cheeky Report Post Quote Reply Posted: 01 Nov 05 at 11:32pm
	Man all this talk of TV killing sailing and that Windsurfing is dead. you need to look out side as see what eles is out there. New things new tricks. If sailing doesn't evolve it sure will have a hard time. And stop clouding your judgment with your own insercurities. Man flying a moth is hard but it anit going to stop me going sailing. you all sound like you need a keel boat and a blazer! Lets BIG it up!