Opposite: September 2003 and Jonathan McKee starts the Mini Transat; McKee was leading the race when his Mini was dismasted with a few hundred miles to go. A poster boy for the wide range of racing opportunities that are available to the well-rounded sailor, McKee is now also coaching – in which capacity he is among those becoming more vocal with their concerns over the poor image and damaging effects of the numbers of RIBs at big events. This (above) is the Sailing World Cup in Miami – no place for Greenpeace
approach that further sped progress and helped make the experience more satisfying. More recently I have been racing mostly
in small keelboat teams (Melges 20, J/70, Melges 32) where coaching is common. Often I have raced regattas without a coach, essentially self-coaching, and this has also been a positive experience. We figure it out on our own, talk to our friends in other teams, and reduce the logistical issues and expenses of coaching. But I have also been coached by some of the best in the business, and most of the time the experience was a positive one. In 2015 I was asked to coach my friend Bora Gulari in the Nacra 17 after he quali- fied for the US Olympic team with Louisa Chafee. This was a great experience for all of us, and again the learning curve was sped up by an appropriate level of coach input and programme assistance. So I have seen coaching from both sides, as both a sailor and a coach. I am well aware of both the benefits and the drawbacks. Before I go too far, let me clarify that most of my own coaching experience has been during training, or post-racing debriefs, and not so much on the water during the regatta. I think this is an impor- tant distinction, and I think this is where we have got off track as a sport, at least at the Olympic-class level.
Finding ways to make training time more productive, and encouraging teams to work together, are positive for the sailors and for the sport. But on race day I believe the sailors should be entirely self-sufficient, as it used to be. There is no good reason that sailors should require coach input in any form once they leave the beach. To me one of the core qualities of a good sailor is the ability to handle any situ- ation on the water, from bringing the right clothes to reading the wind and current. When this independence is reduced the sailor loses, and I think the sport loses. For one thing, the most highly resourced teams can also afford the highest levels of coach- ing and outside analysis, so the rich tend to get richer. There has been an argument that race-day coaching somehow helps poorer teams, but I think the opposite is
true. We want to reward the best sailors, not the ones with the most resources. Then there is the sustainability issue. At the Rio Olympics there was literally one coach boat for nearly every sailboat. Think of the footprint of one coach boat, includ- ing transport to the event, mooring, fuel, oil, maintenance and so on. Now multiply that times 500, and you have the harbour in Rio. And this for a sport that fancies itself at the forefront of greenness! It struck me as pretty ridiculous, and I had a hard time seeing how it improved the quality of the competition.
One obvious consequence of all these RIBs speeding around is their wake. The harbour course in Rio was substantially rougher, and the waves more random, than it naturally would be. This makes for less fair sailing, because the wakes are so irregular, and less fun for the sailors. This is true even if the coach boats are restricted during the actual race, because the artifi- cial waves stay around for a long time. Proposal: I think World Sailing should immediately implement additional coach boat restrictions for all World Cup events, world and continental championships, and the Olympics. And I propose that coach boats would not be allowed on the water for five days before each event. Organisers would agree to run practice racing on the various course areas, on a rotating basis, starting five days before the first race. This could be run by the organis- ers, or by a small group of coaches, but the number of boats would be severely limited, and restricted to race management and safety duties. Plus, organisers would agree to provide a platform for any interested coaches to watch the racing, as has been done in the past – I am thinking of the Olympics I coached in Barcelona in 1992. One interesting twist would be to position the coach platform in the middle of the racecourse, for good viewing and as another standard element of the course. Thus the coaches would be in a position to watch the racing and provide good feed- back at the end of the day. But no contact between sailor and coach would be allowed while the sailors are on the water… before,
during or after the day’s racing. To my many coach friends, let me say this: your job is still very important! You have a valuable place on the water during training days, and you can still help your sailors improve during the regattas by providing high-quality feedback in the morning and the evening. But the time on the water belongs to the sailors, so you had better help them to be more self-sufficient. This is a better use of coach resources, and it will encourage better all-round sailors. This proposal is directed at the Olympic classes. But of course the proliferation of coaching and coach boats has occurred at many levels of our sport. In particular, there is a lot of concern about over-coach- ing of youth sailing.
Again, I think it is useful to separate training from racing. Coaching can be valuable to help young sailors improve faster, and to promote a more team- oriented approach (sharing learning with a group of boats or even the whole fleet). But come race day, let’s let the sailors discover the joys of doing it all themselves. They will learn the real lessons better this way, and be better prepared for a future in the sport (and in life). As for adult classes, I think each class should have the ability to determine the level of outside support that is appropriate. Some classes may decide that coach boats should not be allowed, but other classes may conclude that some level of on-the-water support is appropriate. This can be written into the class rules, as it already is for a handful of classes. Individual regattas can also restrict coaching and/or coach boats through language in their NOR and SIs. I am not just trying to be nostalgic here.
Sailing is a fantastic sport, and I want all sailors to enjoy it as much as I have. But I think we will serve our sailors better if we return to them the self-sufficiency that has historically been at the heart of our sport. Author’s note: I first wrote on this subject in the November 2016 issue of Sailing World. Subsequently, the Seahorse editor asked me to look in more detail at some of the many issues involved… this is not the end of the story!
q SEAHORSE 39
CRAIG LEWECK
JORGE ANDREU/DPPI
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