Paul Cayar
Rob Weiland
On all our heads
My father was a staunch supporter of the Dutch liberal party and did much work for ‘his’ party. At his funeral the local chairman of the party remem- bered him as the ‘social conscience of the party for his constituency’ and indeed he was. In his footsteps I try to be the conscience of the TP52 class. Sport, and certainly professional
sport, tend to focus on the winners. Few concern themselves with those not on stage, at best in the belief that the example set by the winners is enough to spur all others to wish to be equally strong and esteemed (and to happily keep trying till success is achieved!). The risk is therefore understood that this narrow focus promotes
a mentality often described as ‘winning at all cost’. Certainly when the game is also a hobby, and for the TP52 owners it certainly is, even if well controlled for rule compliance, this unavoidably leads to soon not having many out there to play. This might be seen as a victory by the last man standing but it is not a victory that makes much sense. Sailing, like most sports, has many mainly unwritten laws on
sportsmanship that draw on a long Anglo-Saxon tradition, with a bit of fantasy going back to the times when the tales of King Arthur were created describing his acts of chivalry. Over centuries the British gentleman became a model for conduct and decorum, symbolised by sports like cricket and tennis. ‘That’s not cricket’ is still universally understood but certainly not
universally practised – not even in cricket. Competition gets com- plicated as soon we get anywhere near terms like the spirit of the rules, fair play, Corinthian and sportsmanship. In sailing we even struggle with the term ‘amateur’. Many sports having starting off as a game when they grew popular then followed the path to becoming small business and from there
34 SEAHORSE
big business. Once substantial money is involved sport soon becomes part of the entertainment industry... and work for those who once used to ‘play’. Not that one cannot enjoy one’s job but the goals and stakes are
different. This then translates to and gets visible in how the game is played: anything not strictly forbidden by the rules becomes legit- imate and limits, whether for equipment or actions on the water, are sought without leaving any margin for error. When non-stop competing on the edge has become the main
attraction of the game can we still rhyme this with the basic principles of RRS2 Fair Sailing: a boat and her owner shall compete in com- pliance with recognised principles of sportsmanship and fair play? Or with the fundamental principle of sportsmanship that when competitors break a rule they will promptly take a penalty, which may be to retire? When so much is on the limit that there is little chance of knowing
for certain whether in, on or out, we may be left to, at least sometimes, wonder whether it is good sportsmanship to push as hard as we do and whether we honestly can expect those charged to judge to call each case to perfection? The fun of a box rule, of course, has to be sought in bringing the
boats exactly on the box limits but then one has to accept that at times boats will unavoidably be over some of the limits as use of equipment, temperature variation, measurement inaccuracies and so on are not being catered for by keeping any safety margin. When you see a fleet of TP52s ready to go racing at a 52 Super Series event they are all true TP52s because they are certified as such. Each boat will not comply in every detail as well as their compliance
or non-compliance with the class rules not being perfectly identical over the period of the regatta. Certainly not if we check chasing 1mm or 2mm differences, but each of them should comply if we check
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