Not an easy sport for an outsider to get their head around and not much less of a challenge for the participants. Look at sailing vertically and at the top there are the pinnacle offshore classes like the Imoca (Charal, left) while feeding the machine is all the brilliant young talent like these Uruguayan girls competing at the Youth Worlds (above). But at every competitive level sailing spreads laterally as well. Should a sport governing body enable, manage, direct? World Sailing’s current big financial challenges offer the excuse for a rethink: step back, give each discipline more autonomy and just hover gently above while keeping it all heading in roughly the same general direction. Sailors are not good at being micro-managed… that is why most sailors do it
in London in 1906, at which the Metre Rule was developed. This group went on to adopt a formal constitution after a meeting at the Yacht Club de France in Paris on 14 October 1907 which is now seen as the formation date of the International Yacht Racing Union. Much later, on 5 August 1996, the IYRU changed its name to the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) and on 14 November 2015 ISAF changed its name to World Sailing. A lot has changed since 1907. For sure for over more than half
a century there has been a much wider variety of sailing craft for competition and a clear distinction between dinghies racing inshore and yachts racing from inshore to oceanic. With the main focus of World Sailing on the Olympics in general offshore sailing, or if you wish yacht racing, does not get the attention and visibility it needs to prosper. Bringing a mixed offshore race to the Olympics could have some
effect but will not on its own balance the scale. I wonder whether giving World Sailing’s Oceanic & Offshore Committee more inde- pendence, more and wider responsibility, dedicated staff and a budget would not be a step in the right direction? Yes, I am aware of the history of this committee and do not advise the return of offshore racing being totally separate from World Sailing. As always success will depend on those doing the job and for sure offshore sailing is a complex animal; but is that not all the more reason to bring in some dedicated expertise? I guess an MTP for World Sailing could be as simple as ‘Organising
clean sailing’; then leave it to the sailors and authorities to translate clean into their preferred mix of values. Run World Sailing well and it will have a positive impact on participation numbers as well as beyond sailing, through the millions sailing helps to educate. What is still not resolved is the more than 100-year-old purpose
with which it all began, to create an international rating rule! Those were the days of Henry Ford… ‘any colour so long as it’s black’. Then again Ford’s impact at the time can easily be seen as just
as transformative as Musk’s today. The goal then was to unite behind one rule (or one car!). Since then at times this was the case for yacht racing and for short periods even with success. Right now, in Musk’s terms, those racing yachts are a ‘multi-rule species’. I do not see a positive transformative impact of that yet but then again I might be wrong. The holy grail of uniting sailing, if ever, certainly now is not as
simple as uniting behind one rating rule. But pulling that one off, even if just for international yacht racing, could be the start of further progress. World Sailing clearly has a historical duty to lead the way. Clean up the seas… but start in your own waters. Rob Weiland, TP52 and Maxi72 class manager
SEAHORSE 33
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