Sport in Turmoil

It's a very naive view to think that ISAF & the RYA are not corrupt, in their own way they are very corrupt, albeit low level corruption but corruption nonetheless and often in a very destructive way for the promotion and furtherence of the sport.

I'm speaking here from bitter experience in the windsurfing arena and admit to not having much first hand knowledge of what goes on in the dinghy world, but it can hardly be just us in isolation.

Just the drive to commercialisation alone and the damage that did to our teaching system in which they used large school owners to inspect smaller one man schools then close them down, one amusing anecdote I often tell was of the story where they failed the school owner on his powerboat/safetyboat presentation, it was the owner of a rival bigger London school nearby that failed him, his other job? An RNLI Inshore rescue boat coxwain. That was one of many similar tales. The sad fact is the RYA puts humans in a position of power and as we all know, power corrupts and there are no checks and balances, at least there were none back then.
This thing with the kitesurfing, suddenly all the RYA coaches instantly becme kitesurfing coaches, with no training, no knowledge they just switched, because they could. What confidence does that inspire in the rest of us in the Kite game? So is it corruption or is it incompetence? Lets face it, they're not about to fire themselves because the game has changed.

So back to our world, it is a mess, we've taked about the mess that emanates from the PYAG, in my more extreme wind up moments I've called 'corrupt' if only for someone to prove me wrong, I'm still waiting for that although in truth I believe something else, it still begs the question why some boats, new boats get penalised deliberately to halt them in their tracks, whilst others get a green light, again no checks and balances.

My personal feeling and what I'd be up to if I were a tad younger and with my previous brio, I'd have lobbied to set up a rival organisation by now, to manage the sport at our level, go for new sponsors, organise new events a new web page, a new system to manage handicaps and bandings, a simpler rule set aimed at broadening adult participation, get a new magazine up and running to promote sport sailing, shake the damned tree so some dead wood falls to the ground and rots as it should.



Edited by iGRF - 09 Oct 15 at 8:09pm

Originally posted by Presuming Ed But was the kitesurfing thing really corruption, or simply the result of a democratic institution in action, possibly reflecting the fact that there's a legislature (Council), but the executive (Exec cttee) actually has too little power.  "Many forms of Gov­ern­ment have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pre­tends that democ­racy is per­fect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democ­racy is the worst form of Gov­ern­ment except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" and  "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Edited by Chris 249 - 09 Oct 15 at 11:36pm

If you really want to recognise Star sailing as an elite event, wouldn't you keep it in the Games?

The possibility must exist that the SSL (and others) have paid money to the ISAF to be recognised as elite. Which would rather bring the sport into disrepute imho. But that is pure speculation, not an accusation!