Update
All sorts of bad things could happen when your clothes match a sail as big as this... Hopefully someone on deck does the occasional head-count. Given the virtual disappearance of soft sails from the America’s Cup and the now one-design nature of many top classes right up to the VO65, the gods of supply and demand really were onside with the well-timed explosion in the superyacht racing scene
SIMPLER CLEANER BETTER – Luca Devoti In Seahorse issue 446 I have read the words of Victor Kovalenko, probably the greatest sailing coach of all time, and Jonathan McKee, a phenomenal sailor and also a great coach. Even if I understand Victor’s lack of concern about the growth in coaching and other resources at regattas (and it is surely the dream of every skilled sailor to have the support of such a skilled maestro) I really think sailing has to be looking to its roots now and concentrating on attracting more sailors in the first place. I believe it is time that coaching and other technical assistance
should be banned at Olympic regattas – and if not banned then we should have a limit of one coach for every 10 athletes, mainly for safety rather than anything else. The Olympic champion should be there on their own merit and not as a result of massive investment – that is why at our Dinghy Academy in Spain we usually having 20 sailors training under one coach. That is enough unless we wish to make it impossible for poorer sailing nations to compete. For sure having Victor Kovalenko as your personal teacher is a
magical and priceless thing, just as I was privileged to share wonderful moments being helped by the legendary Valentin Mankin; but when I go to a regatta today I see hundreds of RIBs, at times as many RIBs as there are boats competing and as many coaches as sailors. This makes me think that a sport that promoted self-reliance has now lost its way. We need to get back to what makes sailing what it is, or should
be about: respecting the sea, understanding its magnificent power and learning to do things on our own that help us develop more confidence in ourselves and a deep and well-rounded personality. Surely the smell of petrol has nothing to do with sailing as I love it? The British RYA was responsible for initially pushing the boundaries
of external support this far but other nations now follow their lead. The RYA has been able to bring immense resources to winning medals and it has of course done so successfully. But if sailing wants to survive then this huge ‘wrapper’ around athletes must be eliminated.
10 SEAHORSE
At the end it is about the athlete, about conquering difficulties and challenging themselves on the pathway to excellence. Respect the sea more, pollute less and let the athletes perform
for all they are worth and learn from their emotions. This is how we promote sailing. In fact, the tiny harbour in Enoshima, site of the 2020 Olympic
regatta, has space for no more than 50 RIBs, which will force a rethink; actually Torben Grael is working now with World Sailing to push for a complete no-RIB policy in Japan. It was not so long ago, at Atlanta in 1996, that the coaches were
all taken out together on one big boat, the same as happens at the Youth Worlds, and the organisers provided athletes with any on the water support plus food, water and so on. Actually, it did not all go smoothly that year as a big storm arrived and scared the sailors so much that we sailed back in – despite the fact that the race committee wanted us to stay out there. But lightning and thunder of incredible power and noise convinced the Finn fleet that it was safer going ashore! Away from the Olympics, reducing on-the-water support will force
another positive change as silly fragile boats will have no place in the future of our sport; partly inspired by the current America’s Cup, we already see too many boats that are not seaworthy and need a support RIB close by all the time. If we reverse the trend we will all have better boats while reducing today’s carbon footprint to a more reasonable level – promoting sailing itself. Talking of the Cup, we must also be careful not to make the same
mistake cycling did some years ago, when they thought the tours were too slow and boring and so the marketing freaks began telling us that indoor racing in the velodromes was the only future. Need- less to say now the tours are huge and indoor cycling is next to zero. Of course if Team New Zealand win the Cup this year and go back to monohulls then we can avoid going too far down that road… Luca Devoti is a Finn Olympic silver medallist, the co-founder of Devoti Boats, founder of the Sailing Academy in Valencia and headed Italy’s +39 America’s Cup team in 2007
INGRID ABERY
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