Did Ainslie really hit the mark?

Originally posted by blueboy   Ben would have been well advised to keep his mouth shut about this in public. He's not doing himself favours in terms of fund raising for "Ben Ainslie Racing".

Is anyone else finding all this a bit unsavoury? Maybe I'm just getting old.

Originally posted by Notl If someone is good then it is not long before they get accused of hitting marks, missing marks or some other mythical misdemeanor.

Any evidence of that? I'm not sure I've ever come across cheating like that. You're accusing two top class sailors of deliberate cheating.

Presumably we are mostly active racing sailors and should be aware that sometimes you are not the best judge of whether you touched a mark or not, other boats may be better placed. It was I think just last week I carefully eased my boat round the windward mark, watching it a good inch away from the hull, and said something like "missed it", only to be greeted with a call from one of my competitors "actually the end of your boom touched it"


Edited by JimC - 04 Aug 12 at 10:00am

Originally posted by Notl Did Ainslie hit the mark?  They have cameras on all the boats, cameras on the jury boats and cameras on press boats and cameras on helicopters.  Where is the video footage of such a contentious issue?  The cameras on the boats will show whether  Hogh-Christensen and Dutchman Pieter-Jan Postma were actually looking, at the time Ainslie rounded the mark. Also Ainslie's camera will show something as will the overhead shot from the Heli and all the cameras on the following boats.  Where is the exciting footage?   If the Dane or the Dutchman were not looking at the time Ben rounded the mark then they should be disqualified from the Olympics.  Its as simple as that.

Was the jury boat in a position to see, when the incident occured?

Probably, yes.