Olympic Classes

Back to Olympic classes.  Surely there shouldn't be any keel boats in the Olympics.  Olympic classes need to be

• a test of athleticism
• good spectator sport
• strict one-design
• non technical
• cheap

The Europe might just be the boat to illustrate my point.  I understand that the Europe is a boat where a mast is needed to match the helms weight and that will take some trial and error which is expensive since a change of mast probaly means a change of sail too.

The Star is another boat in a similar vein.  I think an Olympic boat should be one where competitors would feel happy to swap boat between races.  The Laser epitomises this and the 49er does almost.

Do you think Chris Boardman would have swapped bikes? Would Linford Christie have swapped shoes? Try to convince Redgrave, Pinsett et al that they'd be just as good with someone elses gear, and they will laugh you out of town.

Sailing is man and machine in harmony. The more perfect that harmony, the more successful the team. It's not just about jumping into a boat and sailing - these  guys have done their home work, all of them, Laser, 49er, Finn, Stars and Europe sailors have spent months if not years trying to reach that perfection.

You can argue all day about reducing the number of variables - people will still tweek their equipment in the search for speed, thats part of our sport.

Just because you are a dinghy sailor, that does not mean there is no place for keelboats in the olympics. In many ways, the Star is the most important fleet. Just look at the talent there - where else would that fleet happen?

On the couple of occasions that I've sailed the 49er I've found that great agility is required at the same time as great strength.  Now I can be agile (sort of) and I can be strong (reasonably) but to be both strong and agile at the same time is a challenge and I can do it adequately for only a short while.  As my son has reminded me, to be both strong and agile is a definition of athletic.  There can be few boats that require these two qualities in such abundance and that is why it is such a great boat for the olympics.

Now the Star requires many abilities and for those that like to excercise these abilities the Star is a great choice, but one is money and that doesn't fit into the olympic ideal.

Another point, for many classes the olympics are not the highest level of competition.  It might be that the top half dozen Melges protagonists are all American.  They would have a much more competitive series of races at their world championships than at the olympics since only one American would be able to attend the olympics.

Adoo, you said to look at the Star fleet and asked where else would that level of competition be. Others here have tried to say that Laser sailing isn’t a good training ground for more “technical” classes.

I find it fascinating that many people at the top of the Star fleet are more successful there, than they were in Lasers. Look at Star bronze medalist and world champ Beashel – he was a national Laser champ once (IIRC) in several years of trying, and he never got close to winning the worlds. Look at Ian Percy. Good in Lasers, very good in Finns, the best in Stars. How can that indicate that the class in which he got beaten (Lasers) is somehow inferior to Stars? How can it show that Laser sailors can’t learn how to sail “technical” boats like Finns and Stars.

Our (Australian) Olympic rep in Finns is OK internationally at finns – he never made it OK nationally in lasers.

Look at Ben Ainslie – eight months from starting Finn sailing, to winning the worlds. How the hell can that be an indication that Laser sailors can’t learn?

And back in the ‘70s, sailors like John Bertrand from the USA moved from Lasers to Finns and very quickly did much better than sailors like John Bertrand from Australia, who spent years in Finns AND has a Masters in Engineering in Finn (or 12m)sails! So one had huge amounts of technical knowledge, and the other was a Laser sailor – and the Laser sailor was a better Finn sailor!

Surely the indications are that Laser sailors learn very quickly (because of the level of competition) to analyse what makes people go fast- whether it’s kinetics or mast bend. Other classes seem to have an ethos that it’s the gear, or the weather, or the weight, or the whatever. That’s a crippling attitude that is rare at the front of the Laser fleet, and even in the middle levels. It’s common in the back of the fleet, that’s why they are back there.

I remember when I was in another class, hearing a good national-level sailor talking to a mid-level Olympian after a Laser race. The talk between the two was devoid of ego or excuses –it was just an exchange of information from two people who want to LEARN, of the sort you hear much less often in other classes.

And if Europe are "farirer"- look at the wonderful task that was creating Shirley Robertson’s Europe mast for 2000. It included buying one tonne of solid aluminium to machine it into a mandril. Then several prototypes were made and team members had to sand them from the INSIDE. The top 2 competitors used custom masts; Shirley’s masts each cost 50% more than the “expensive” wing masts of the 1996 games.

So how many people are in the weight range where they can sail Europes but not Radials, AND have access to that sort of cash? Remember, if you’re talking equity in weights, surely you also have to talk equity in funding. Just because UK sailors have lots of cash doesn’t mean you can ignore the rest of the world and call it fair.

And finally, having raced (with success) against a former women’s Laser Radial champ and against the guys who finished 1^st, 3^rd and 4^th in the Radial worlds, I’d be amazed if the weight range for Radials is as tight as some people here think it is.