49er medal race

Originally posted by Scooby_simon Originally posted by JimC I dunno, I reckon that 49er race was more of a lottery than the damn drifters... The number of medals that changed hands in the last gybe/bear away to the line was phenomenal. I thought they would have looked better on the box than they did. Disappointing Jim, I greatly respect you, but this is just utter rubbish.  If we ever want sailing to be watched by non sailors, this is exactly what they will wat to see.  Fast boats in challenging conditions.

So what do you disagree with? That it was something of a lottery depending on how the gusts hit?
I've been in something of that that situation: narrow gate, extreme conditions, not really being able to pick your gybe, and to my way of thinking it is a bit of a lottery. Full marks for drama, and yes I wasn't able to sit still when the Aussie guys hit the piss and lost the medal, but is it really a good thing that the whole result of 4 years campaigning should come down to who gets lucky on the last gybes?

Or are you disagreeing with me when I say that I thought they'd look better on the box than they did? How do you know how good I thought they'd look to tell me I'm wrong when I say I was disappointed?
We were discussing it over lunch at my sailing club and I was by no means the only one who felt that you had to understand what was going on to appreciate how on the edge the boats are and that the sense of it really didn't come over. Unless you've tried the sketchy game of bearing away from the windward mark in big breeze and waves do you really understand why they were being so lairy and taking the marks so wide?

18 footer racing tended to produce a bit better film, but of course the camera boats could be close enough to really get in the way of the racers... not an option at the games really. The long lenses (and all the rain) took a lot of the drama out for me, but what do you do? And my oath it was seriously windy out there, but you really didn't get the sense of that either...

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what comments I get at work on Monday and who makes comments about which race... But personally I'm not particularly bothered whether sailing is watched by non sailors or not.

Edited by JimC

Originally posted by Stefan Lloyd In principal, me neither. However it seems that's a necessary condition for sailing continuing as an Olympic sport.

That seems to be a myth. Of course the IOC regularly changes its mind about what factors are important and what aren't for a sport to be in the games, but TV coverage is not that high on the list at the moment. It was about 8 years ago, but that's history. A couple of sports with pretty good TV ratings are or have been on the chop list.

Sailing has a lot of pluses. Its got a long Olympic history, its relatively cheap to put on (no stadium, no pool, no lake, no artficial hills), the legacy facilities are relatively useful (Qingdao was probably chosen because that was where the Chinese wanted a former Olympic marina and facilities: nothing to do with its merits as a venue) and a whole bunch of other factors.

You're right, I got befuddled by the double points.

I think the Brazilians had the idea costing in under genoa....
Ultimately I think it was the waves rather than the wind that ultimately caused all the trouble.


Edited by Lukepiewalker

Originally posted by JimC We were discussing it over lunch at my sailing club and I was by no means the only one who felt that you had to understand what was going on to appreciate how on the edge the boats are and that the sense of it really didn't come over. Unless you've tried the sketchy game of bearing away from the windward mark in big breeze and waves do you really understand why they were being so lairy and taking the marks so wide?

The Danes were both trapezing into the finish but I saw others with the crew praying in the middle of the boat.

Yes the 49er race had us on the edge of our seats, both me and the 29er youngster in the same room. I have sailed in those conditions in a properly classic sort of dinghy, and I still think some of the leeward mark roundings were taken far too wide, not that it matttered as staying upright seemeed to be more important.

I have just watched the evening sailing program and it seems to me now that the wind varied quite a lot from one medal race to another and we didn't get many figures re the wind strength.

I do hope the Danes hang on to Gold - maybe they would win simply on the fewest capsizes?

Tessa