Olympic Classes for 2012

A fair point in isolation Rick, but the "old school" nations are also the ones with the resources to get themselves up to speed fast, so the benefit to the new nations is highly dubious. With major limitations on their resources, they have to buy new kit, find the sailors, get coaches up to speed etc etc. In the UK, just as an example, we already have a fair few sailors who have at least sailed this type of boat, plenty of coaches who understand twi-wire asymmetric sailing and above all lots of money. Who is likely to end up better off? It could in fact be argued that the best way to preserve the status quo is to "hit the reset button". I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I'm unconvinced that it helps the less established sailing nations.

My concern is that the ISAF council ignores the advice of their committees.

Edited by Jon Emmett

it should be remembered that these guys sail daily in most cases so the wear on hardware, including hulls themselves is going to be extreme versus what most of us put onto our own craft...

it's not fair to put the blame for being put off sailing (rick) on the choice of class, who says you wouldn't have stepped in an i14 for xx years after sailing one daily for 3-4 years, I doubt rowers or cyclists look forward to getting onto a bike or into a rowing skiff after taking it to an olympic level for 3 years straight!

what the choice of class debate does show is that

a) we have all got different ideas of what we would like to see as spectators
b) we have all got different ideas of what we think the sailors would want
c) most of this thread has been marked by an absence of olympic sailors telling us (the mortals) what they think of (b) and (a) !


.... oh and for those of you bashing away on cost angles - yeah I also think that spending £5 on a 470 or a Star would be the greatest waste of money ever but on the flip-side if I was doing a campaign and had a chance of winning a medal I'd spend whatever I got my hands on (and more) if I thought it would increase my chances and I wouldn't regret it for 1 second

"Look at the 49er finale in Qingdao. Now if that is not prime time TV
nothing is!!! I know I will get flamed all over for this but so be it. Fire
away!"

Yes, it was prime time TV stuff - but what is the result for sailing?
The 18 Foot Skiff TV series (allegedly) outrated cricket here, and there's
just 20 of
them still sailing here, in a budget format, and there are free boats
available to skippers, skippers looking for crews, and the 18 clubs have
no juniors.

In other words, prime time TV did not work to promote the class.

Formula 1 is prime time TV stuff, but despite enormous amounts of
money being poured into the sport by a vast parent industry, motor
racing is no bigger (in participant terms) than sailing is in the Uk or
Australia.

Windsurfing's world cup is prime time TV stuff, with double loops, but
windsurfing is tiny compared to what it used to be before it put the
emphasis on high performance.

As the guy who runs the biggest sporting viewership, marketing and
participation survey down here says, viewers do not equal participants.

I just got back from the normal Wednesday race and beer and wine sess
with (as usual) two skippers from the last Games. One was a two-time
world champ in pro windsurfing (up to 150,000+ live spectators), winner
of the world's #1 wavesailing competition, winner (IIRC) of the Paris
indoor windsurfing, four time Olympian, etc.

That's pretty much an impeccable record in the fastest, wildest sailing
craft around. Since semi-retiring after the last Games, and turning
towards promoting the sport among kids, they have gone straight
towards the simplest, cheapest class in windsurfing - not the fastest, not
the one with most TV, not the coolest, but the kids are loving it because
they can just have FUN. A whole generation here dumped the sport
because they were fed an image that made it look like something just for
Hawaiians; just like the fact that the skiff club next door cannot get kids
to sail because they think it's all about crashing and rigging time.

The YA article someone linked to earlier is interesting, because they may
currently be backtracking as their "high tech, high performance' concept
has not worked in that area of teh sport and the low-tech, low-hassle,
high-fun concept seems to be working.

Stefan, re "I look at the 470 and I don't see that". The point that was
being made was specifically not about any one class, but about the fact
that the entire genre of medium/slow boats - the boats that attract
people enough to actually persuade them to buy them in quantity, the
boats that are the backbone of our sport from club level to the Games -
are under a continual barrage of attack.

PS Jon, that's a fascinating 470/Tornado response and thank you for an
interesting factual background.

It was surprising to see how many kites and sails the 470 allegedly ate v
the Tornado, which (according to the few guys I've sailed Ts with) eats
kites. Any more info?

PS Paul Goodison may use 8 Lasers in a campaign. If he's like Tom
Slingsby, he sells them for 5/6 of what they cost. That's a pretty cheap
bottom line, compared to other classes. Blackburn often used very old
boats and spent much less and got a medal against Schiedt and Ainslie,
which wasn't too shabby.

No one's saying we should have no skiffs, no cats, no fast boats. All we're
saying is that not everyone has the same taste, only a minority wants fast
boats and most people choose to sail slow boats (which must mean
something) and that no one has given us proof that seeing fast boats is
the best way to get people into sailing.

If we are going to dump the style of boat that actually attracts sailors,
surely it should only be on the basis of proof that such boats DO in fact
attract sailors - not someone's opinion or someone's quote of someone
else's opinion.

PPS; Rick, it's understandable that you burned out on 470s. I burned out
on World Cup style (raceboard, slalom and wavesailing) competitions. I
have a friend who burned out on an Olympic singlehander about as fast
as an MPS. Julian Bethwaite burned out when he was sailing the Prime
two-handed 18s. World Cup windsurfers, who had almost no class rules
and spent their days looping in front of spectators before hopping into
their Porsches, BMWs and Audis, also burned out.

Today, someone who burned out on a slow Olympic class (still made the
finals in the last Games, tho') exclaimed in glee that they want to do every
national in a slower class for as long as they could foresee....

Burnout happens, but it may not be related to speed.

Edited by Chris 249

PM going in, Rick. It will identify those I have quoted, and who I am. It
will
include national (etc) titles won, research work completed, those who
have
been interviewed for this research work (most dinghy designers and
major
builders in the world), and the names and classes of the Olympians I have
been quoting.

As a rule, I don't quote people by name unless I have asked permission.
And
there doesn't seem to be much reason to blast my name around since our
own opinions aren't important - what is important is the facts and
research
we can provide.

PS - totally agree that it's not all about having slow boats in the games;
many things are more important. And yes, we need SOME fast boats
because diversity can be a strength.

But arguably many other things are more important than having more fast
boats, and therefore we should be putting more energy into those things,
AND publically supporting the slow/medium boats that make up most of
our sport.

Edited by Chris 249