Generation Gap
Friday, November 14, 2008 at 02:44PM Have you ever heard of the story of the boiling frog? To borrow from that font of reliable knowledge, Wikipedia: "The boiling frog story states that a frog can be boiled alive if the water is heated slowly enough — it is said that if a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out, but if it is placed in cold water that is slowly heated, it will never jump out." To learn more, click here.
Anyway, sorry, I digress from the main story, that for the second consecutive year ISAF Council has ignored the recommendations of its expert committees and sub-committees and opted - as it invariably does - for the status quo. I suppose any of us that wanted progress should be happy that the 29erXX even made it this far, and the 19:16 vote suggests it is only a matter of time before the women get their high performance doublehander. The trouble is that in the Olympic world, 'a matter of time' is measured out in batches of four years.
The earliest that women will now be able to compete for a medal in a modern high performance skiff is the 2016 Games, which would mean the women got their high performance boat 16 years after the men got theirs, the 49er having first appeared in Sydney 2000. It's a sad indictment of the inherent conservatism and lack of vision of ISAF's top table. Remember that ISAF Council can't even take credit for the 49er's inclusion. That was the then-President of ISAF, the maverick Paul Henderson, who railroaded the 49er past the selection process. Sometimes dictatorship gets better results than democracy.
So who voted 470 and who voted 29erXX? Er, we don't know, because it was a conducted under a secret ballot. And only yesterday Goran Petersson was telling us: "it is the Council who are the true democratic voice of ISAF." And here was me thinking that openness and accountability were the underpinnings of a democratic process.
Apparently the decision to opt for a secret voting process was in response to the venom and vitriol from some rather rabid supporters of the multihull lobby, who published Council members' email and phone numbers on public internet forums and so forth. I have some sympathy with that, as I came in for a bit of hate mail myself, and I was on the multihull sailors' side! So heaven knows what the Council members who voted keelboat instead of multihull were getting through their electronic letter boxes.
But even so, this is politics. You expect mudslinging, and if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. The actions of a few email terrorists are not sufficient reason for Council to go all secret on us. Quite apart from the fact that it ain't democratic, we can't learn much from what happened today either. As the CEO of the 49er class, Marcus Spillane, said to me: "We'd like to know why people voted the way they did so we can talk to them and understand what it was about the 29erXX that wouldn't have worked for them. As it is, we remain in the dark about that, and so it was an opportunity wasted."
Some Council members said they were in favour of the 29erXX in principle, but that 'now' wasn't the right time. Well, when exactly is the right time? There will never be a right time. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and get on with it.
The Council member from Singapore said it would be unfair on the 470 women who competed in the Asian Games two years ago, and that keeping the 470 was the right thing to do because their investment would be protected. Crikey! With logic like that, no longer we still have classes in the Olympics that date back to the Ark. You've got to change some time!
And by the way, those Asian Games that he refers to. How many women's 470s were competing in Doha in December 2006? Four, apparently. Four! Perhaps if the 29erXX had got in, then they could have sold their secondhand 470s to some men's teams instead? D'ya think? Or maybe all four boats were gelcoated in Barbie pink and therefore worthless to a male secondhand market...
Another Council member noted that these were grave times for the global economy and so change would be expensive. Yes, tell that to the girls who are going to have buy a new Elliott 6. Besides which, there is already a good secondhand market of 29er hulls out there in the world. The conversion to a 29erXX is peanuts by Olympic standards. Being a manufacturer one-design, the campaign costs of a 29erXX would be cheaper than a 470, which offers good value sailing but is still subject to hull and rig development costs.
For the second year running we've seen a good week of progressive discussions hit the crash barriers as ISAF Council squashes a real opportunity for change. Every four years the Olympic Regatta falls further and further behind the modern sailing world as the status quo is allowed to remain. How many more Olympic cycles before the IOC dismisses sailing as an outdated irrelevance with no youth or sex appeal?
Of course, I'm exaggerating. We're not in crisis yet. But did you ever hear that story about the boiling frog?
Question: Was this an opportunity missed? Or were ISAF Council right to stick with the tried and tested 470?
29erXX, 470, ISAF Council 
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Reader Comments (7)
Just to reiterate the same point made on the previous news regarding the OAPs of ISAF
really like that final comment by Bill Tucker;.........I'm tempted to go all Churchillian here with curtains having descended over continent etc...
Very apt.
I shouldn't let this decision get to me, as the result was kinda a formality but I just can't help myself. With the exception of the first and last medal race days, Beijing was like watching paint dry. And this is coming from the most ardent sailing spectator anywhere. Yet given the potential a good venue like Weymouth could bring they choose the same barges as before. How good would it have been to see Ben go for his forth gold in a Musto Skiff or the blondes leaving those Edgington 'Vapour Trails' in a 29XX.
I am aware that ISAF aim to promote racing in all classes but after making this decision for the pinnacle of our sport, I see it as a decision made from people who are too old to be given this responsibility!
I noticed on the ISAF site their current home banner shows a trapeze boat with wings to spice up their site, surely a pic of Star would be more apt.
Hmm, the highest performance boats like Moths and Tornados are maybe 25% faster round a track than a 470 at the absolute most. Why should a fairly small increment in speed lead to a huge increment in spectator appeal? The 29erXX will do maybe 15 to 20knots downwind in a breeze when the 470 is doing 10-15, and probably 4 when the 470 is doing 5 in the lighter stuff. Upwind the difference will be less. I sailed high performance skiff types for over thirty years and love them, and have no intention of ever getting in a 470 again, but I think we're kidding ourselves if we think the choice of boat will do anything for spectator appeal.
A 25% speed differential is not significant to a spectator? To take that conclusion to a logical extreme, powerboat enthusiasts would be just as happy watching fishing boats racing around the course (as long as they had nice loud engines) as the somewhat more advanced machines some misguided fools currently think they want to see.
25% does not sound much, but every little helps. But it is not just a matter of relative speed. Just look at Richard Langdon's pitchpole photo. Tell me that a skiff crew running across from wing to wing does not look considerably more athletic and dynamic. Tell me that the first time you saw a foiling Moth your jaw did not drop (or did yours drop as a result of an involuntary yawn at seeing just another boring dinghy sailing by?).
Sure some people will always switch channels the moment the presenter utters the word "sailing", but for others, that extra 25% and the dynamism that goes with it will be just enough to grab their interest and win a convert to our sport.
Ok so they've gone and done it again and not gone for the spectator viewing approach. The only surprise, I think, is that they almost bought it. I've thought of a "third way" of getting some more exciting sailing back into the games and it doesn't involve extra funding in terms of competitors and boats.
As ISAF have selected two 470's and allegedly have the 11th event available, why not go for mixed (male/female) two boat team racing in 470's when they've done their medal races? Would be exciting to watch and not much extra cost to run...
New mixed events are strongly discouraged, perhaps even forbidden by the IOC because there are cultures that find mixed events unacceptable. There's an awful lot more to choosing events than you might think.
Hang on Jim what about Badminton and Equestrian? They have mixed Olympic teams and don't seem to worry about it? If it's o.k. for these sports to represent what happens in day to day competition, why's sailing different? Go club racing any weekend and you'll see lots of mixed teams competing, especially if you go to a team racing event. Looking at most of the teams entered for the last Olympics I can't see many that would not send a mixed team on cultural grounds. In sailing we are very lucky that Men and Women can compete together as a team unlike many other sports.
But then just as some cultures wouldn't like to see mixed teams some cultures don't like women competing at all, so where do you draw the line?
Rory, *New* mixed events are discouraged, but ones that are well established are allowed to continue. No-one ever said any kind of politics had to make sense, even/especially IOC politics!