Star sailors, catamaran sailors, match racers, Star sailors again, and now Windsurfers have all in quick succession felt the deep impact of this structure.  For about 12 hours last year it seemed the 49er was to join their fate, yet a mere 6 months later the 49er fleet is doubled.   By will, impulse and influence at these conferences, sailing tacks and gybes with no true course.

The pain of these decisions fades very slowly leaving scars through the sailing community.  Similar battles are played out on the topics of class choices, event locations, Olympic spot allocations and so on.  The result is a deficit of trust in ISAF from the masses in the boat park.  Trust is the one key characteristic that every organization must have in order to have long term success.

The root cause of all this controversy is the structure of ISAF.  The system is set up to produce exactly the type of decisions that it does.  Decisions – that are important, dramatic, and of high consequence – are made by the volunteer politicians of ISAF.  For all the committees, papers, studies, and rhetoric, the sport is lead by decision making of the ISAF council, who preside and vote on each major decision at conferences twice per year.

The ISAF Council has 36 votes, large in comparison to how businesses run, small in comparison to the UN.  What this discussion focusses on is that 36 is that it is too many to be lead by one vision or leader, especially as it’s a volunteer group.  The reason this characteristic is important is because the voters end up competing with each other for outcomes as they are not able to invest the amount of time and energy it would take to work all the way through to a collaborative result.  In the synergistic goals diagram above, we see collaboration defined as win – win.  What the diagram doesn’t show is the incredible amount of effort it takes to get to collaborative results.  Just ask the Danish 49er team or NED Yngling teams how difficult it is to have competitors bridge competing desired outcomes to pull for a common goal if any proof is needed.

With 36 people on council, the task of working to collaborative outcomes is likely impossible.  Add on the great number of decisions left to the council and it’s volunteer nature and nobody should be surprised that the interested parties ‘compete’ for decisions – so sailing is left with compromises clearly shown by the volume of winners and losers.

Fortunately, ISAF is a quick fix away from reforming itself into a highly functioning organization.  It has a tremendous amount going for it.  Huge numbers of highly qualified and dedicated volunteers, 10 medals in the Olympics, and a sport unsurpassed in its blend of challenges.

The most important thing ISAF should do is turn the current game of politics on decisions into a game of politics on politics.  Let’s have ISAF council vote in a powerful leader, like the NFL’s commissioner, to run the sport professionally for us.  Instead of voting on every decision for the sport, the council should be voting who will lead our sport.  All decisions, except for who’s in charge, should be moved to the professional levels within ISAF with accountability falling to the top official.  Within the professional levels, enough time and energy can be spent on working to achieve collaborative goals and execute a long term vision for sailing.

ISAF volunteers can then focus on their various areas of expertise.  The removal of such politically charged decision making, would allow focus and energy to be on the long term health and growth of the sport.  Decision making is only 1 piece of making a successful organization.  There are many other things an organization must do well to thrive and reforming the structure of ISAF is the only way to bring balance to the focus areas of our sport.  We can’t get there the way our sport is structured right now.  More than anything else, we must realize the limitations of the way we are playing this game and set ourselves up for success.

I’ll try to ignore the intangibles about home ownership, it’s stability, and security versus rentings flexibility and instability.  These factors are nicely summarized by how long a person is looking to stay still for and calculated in the rent vs. buy calculator.

Lets continue  with an assumption that any property that can be bought can likely be rented too, so we’re facing a choice.

Renters are often made of fun of for ‘paying someone else’s mortgage.’  By separating a purchase it is possible to determine just how much rent is paid to a mortgage and how much of a house price is for living and how much is for a investment.

At Current Interest Rates

Lets take a $400,000 Vancouver Condo alternatively rented at $1,500 per month.  To help calculate the size of the investment, we’ll use the cost of capital.  A common assumption for cost of capital is the prime rate plus 2%, and currently that is similar to the 5 year lending rate by banks so seems like a good number to use.  Both are currently around 3%.

So that $400,000 home costs $12,000 a year in the cost of capital, or $1000 per month ($400,000*3%).  A condo owner then adds strata fees and utilities and we can see that the buy versus rent calculation here is close to neutral at around $1500 per month, and the decision is likely best made on the intangibles, like stability versus flexibly and the time expected to stay in that location.

Now lets look at a $1M East side Vancouver Special and lets assume the owners live upstairs and rent out a basement suit.  The cost of capital using the same calculation is $30,000, or $2,500 monthly.  The downstairs renters kick in $1,000 and the upstairs would rent for $2,000 per month.  In this scenario, the owners are ‘up’ $500 per month that goes to pay their property taxes, and again things are  pretty much even.

The renter pays the owner and then the owner pays the bank.  As both costs are comparable, the argument of paying someone else’s mortgage is actually only slightly true.  The renter is actually paying the interest on someone’s mortgage, but not the principle, using these numbers at least.

Finally, lets look at  $4M West Side Home.  The cost of capital is $120,000 per year or $10,000 per month.  Typical rent for these home is $5000 per month, so the owner pays the equivalent of $5000 per month plus property taxes to own the home if they rent to someone else, or $10,000 a month to live there.

At Long Term Average Interest Rates

Now lets take a look at each of our 3 scenarios but at an interest rate or cost of capital at the long term average of 6%.  I’ll also make an assumption that rents stay relatively steady, which I think is a fair assumption as it is a competitive market.

Looking at the final column, we can see that the condo owner pays $2,000 per month plus $500 in Strata for $2500 instead of $1500 in rent.  The East Sider pays $5,000 per month instead of $3,000 in rent and the West Sider pays $20,000 per month instead of $5,000 in rent.

Why are all the home owners so excited about this proposition?  I’ll argue it has less to do with stability and intangibles and far more to do with the opportunity to make a leveraged investment.  The average person has very few opportunities in life to make leveraged investments of the types we hear about getting Wall Street fat cats rich.  Banks simply don’t lend money to the average person like that.  I know, when setting up Port Tack Charter no banks would touch it for a loan, and that was a business plan with low overheads and all of the start up money going into fairly liquid capital items.

But housing is different.  Banks will lend for home mortgages and are encouraged to do so through the Bank of Canada’s insurance program.  This industry gives the average person a chance to leverage themselves financially like no other opportunity does.

Returning to our Table of prices, lets look through them again with the lens of investment over the portion that can be justified by living.  This time we’ll start with the long term rate of 6%.

Here we follow each housing option down the financial path.  By comparing the cost of capital to rent, we can determine how leveraged each home owner is.  By using this ratio to separate rent and investment, we calculate how much of the home can be justifiably called a ‘Living Principle,’ and how much should be considered a leveraged investment.  Finally, by taking a growth rate in housing prices of 6% per year we see that everything balances out again and the prices of holding these investments can be justified.

But you see, we’re not living in average times, with 6% cost of capital and 6% housing price increases.  We’re living in times where interest rates are at all time lows and housing prices are going up 10% per year… for now.  Costs of owning are down, rates of price increases are up, who wouldn’t want to own a home?!!!

Who knows when… and nobody can predict the future, but there possibility of interest rates going up and housing prices levelling off seems likely.

I believe the above analysis shows that the only way to justify the current housing prices is to treat many of these homes as leveraged investments.  The question we all need to be asking ourselves is if homes must go up in price to justify owning them, what happens when the growth stops?  What prices can be justified by homes if there is no return through housing price growth?  What I’ve labelled above the ‘Living Principle’ is a justifiable floor to prices… is there anything else?

I’ll chose not to try and predict the future, but rather propose a discussion on what we should do if the market runs into trouble.  It’s important to be prepared and have a plan as recess,ions have a way of hitting much quicker than recoveries.  The Vancouver 2010 Olympics were perfectly timed, as right in the middle of the 2008 global financial crisis we were in build mode and the economy had some guaranteed money pushing it.  Next time, lets be ready with a plan that’s ready to roll.

Vancouver housing development has been driving the economy of this city.  Any disruption to development would have extremely serious consequences for our economy, and with our smug reputation I doubt we’d get much sympathy.

So lets picture a setback to the market triggered either internally or externally.  Through luck or good planning, Vancouver has a store of housing stock worth a huge amount that can be used to counteract any market correction.  Looking around Vancouver, a city bordered by water on 3 sides you may ask where that valuable land is, and no, I’m not proposing we develop the Endowment Lands or Stanley Park.

Vancouver zoning laws have protected the character of West Side neighborhoods from density increasing develpments throughout the past 100 years of growth.  I’m calling to question what is being protected!

In the 1980′s my family moved to 29th and Granville, Shaughnessy…  Our 100 by 180 foot lot and giant house were upper middle class, there is no doubt.  It was a community when we got there.  There were neighbourhood barbecues and kids playing in the parks on on the streets.  Through the 90′s though, families moved out and the community atmosphere faded away.

As my generation grew up, the scramble to get onto the housing ladder drew our attention to the East Side.  Neighborhoods like Main and Commercial Drive became the home of hipsters, the places to be, and communities with character.  As development continued, even these new areas became unaffordable for young families.  A curious distortion occurred, with East Side homes selling for $1M on 33 by 120 lots, or $250 / sq foot, they became more expensive than West side homes at $3M, but only $165 / sq foot.  As it stands now, the East Side still lives on it’s fundamentals.  Even buying a million dollar house can make sense.  Between the low interest rates and a mortgage helper in the basement, a family could economically justify owning a house for the long term.

The West side of Vancouver is another story.  Prices have more than caught up to the East Side, yet the market is being driven by different forces than on the East side.  Home are being purchased for $3M – $7M yet can command rents of little more than the east side.  Besides the simple math of rents, another way we know that the markets aren’t functioning on fundamentals is that Vacancy rates accross the West side are increasing.  There is plenty of corroborating evidence for this as well, as West side traffic is virtually non existent past Burrard Street.

So we have a West side market based on speculative money.  Investors are chasing commodity prices rises, much like we’ve seen in Gold markets, instead of investing in homes based on the fundamentals of economic rent.  I’d describe this as a bubble but that’s just provocative.   The fact is, this ‘bubble’ has been fuelling the Vancouver economy nicely for some time and it would be fantastic if it could be sustained through any shock that may occur.

So back to the space Vancouver has available.  It’s the zoning protected densities of the West Side.

The chart above shoes population densities of Vancouver.  The catalysts that has been Yaletown and then Mount Pleasant is what’s driven Vancouver to the top of world wide livablility charts.  We can also see Kits and Kerrisdale on the map here with solid density, and both are recognized as fantastic communities to live in.

The city has already announced that the Cambie corridore is ripe for development, and that will be fantastic with the Subway running through it.  The West side should be next.

If the market sours, we risk so much in our city.  A collapse in housing prices would totally derail the Vancouver economy.  Instead of letting us fall to that fate, lets continue the trend that’s making Vancouver what it is, and transform Shaughnessy and the rest of the West Side into vibrant communities again.  By opening up zoning to density in these highly sought after communities it would likely outstrip any downside forces limiting development and keep our economy rolling.  At the same time, it would continue a fantastic trend in our city that has seen us embrace modern and more sustainable living,.

I heard recently that, “The city would never do that as it protects communities.”  The only thing the city is protecting is exclusivity, and it’s killing the West Side.  Vacancy and low density are both a waste and unsustainable.  Luckily, the desirability of the West Side will not go anywhere, so that is why even in a downturn, a quick change in zoning can be all the stimulus we’ll need.

Most of the candidate boats fall within similar optimum weight ranges and comparing optimum weight ranges of classes is important.  It is vital that most normal sized humans can have a boat to sail where they fit optimally.  That’s not to say shorter people can’t sail boats for heavy weights or vice versa, it’s just that the Olympic suite of boats should cater to a variety of sizes.  Some have been arguing to bring in boats at the high end of the weight ranges, while others have argued that because the trials were held in medium wind conditions, the bigger boats faired better by sailor evaluation because they felt more powered up in medium breeze without having to deal with the big breeze downsid

With that in mind we want to get some real data into the conversation.  Using the resource http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height, a survey on the heights of humans around the world, Port Tack Option decided to take a look at the claim that current (and future) Olympic classes are skewed to be better for smaller competitors.  Our analysis produced quite the opposite result, and here is the thesis.  Email us for the spreadsheet if you’d like to play with it.

It has been argued by some that the best available demographics to rank our classes is the average weight of Olympic athletes.  Well, if there was ever a more distorted groups of people to get the every man into a sport I’m not sure what.  One only has to play “guess what sport” while sitting in the McDonalds in an Olympic village to quickly deduce that using Olympians are not a typical demographic.  Yet for sailing, we’re looking for exactly a typical demographic.  In plain English, if you include basketball, volleyball, rowers, etc in a demographic average you’re going to get a skewed result, as the people who excel in those sports are often giants!

The wiki demographics tell a simple story.  Men and women of the various continents are not giants, and while Europeans are the tallest right now, the variability is not so large.

So for the women we have a range from 1.57 to 1.65m with an average of 1.60.  For the men we have a range of 1.69 to 1.78m and an average of 1.72.  These are the people of the world.  If we want to get the most people into our sport as possible, our Olympic classes should cater to people within range of these heights.  Of course, while height is important to sailing, weight is the most critical element due to the displacement of water as the boats move.

Using these average heights, I calculated the corresponding weights at BMI (Body Mass Index) of 20 and 25.  BMI’s are imperfect measures of health by weight, and many Olympic athletes fall low or high of the ‘ideal’ 20, but 20 is considered healthy and I’ll argue that healthy sailors are happy sailors.  My thesis is this, by taking normal heights and then assigning (through BMI) healthy weights for normal sized people, we can find out what weights to select boats for.  It is folly to use current average human weights, as there is a trend toward obesity in society that sport is trying to counteract.  On the other hand, being a healthy weight for average height is perfect, and what we should be striving for.

Here is the data.

Women's Weights

Men's Weights

For women at a 20 BMI we have a range from 49 kg to 55 kg with the average at 52 kg.  For women at a 25 BMI we have a range from 60 – 68 with an average of 64 kg.

For men at 20 BMI we have a range from 56 to 63 with an average of 63 kg.  For men at 25 BMI we have a range from 70 -79 with an average of 75 kg.

So there we have it.  If we aim to center our classes around the people of the world, we should center our weight ranges around 58 (52+64)/2 kg for women and  69 (63 + 75)/2  kg for men.

Here is a great article by Andy Rice ahead of the Qingdao games, which is useful with similar thoughts about Rio being mentioned.

Years ago French and English settlers moved across our vast geography in pursuit of opportunity and resources and settled our great nation.  Ultimately the British divided it up according to some lines of latitude, lines of longitude, geography, and practical compromise.  The lives of Canadians have changed dramatically since then, and in the quest to make our country as fantastic a place as possible, lets modernize how we govern ourselves to reflect our lives today, not lives as they were 150 years ago.

The major metropolitan areas of Canada are limited by space so designing cities to effectively use space and provide great life opportunities is the goal in these centers of excellence.  The arts, learning, health care, professional sports, banking, finance, start ups and many other aspects of urban life benefit from the collaboration and interaction of people.  Ours governments must provide opportunities for efficient use of limited land by creating the opportunities to use centers of excellence and economies of scale, like mass public transit.  These areas are best characterized by the fast paced and quick changing nature of the high tech lives we live.

Rural governments face a different challenge.  These governments must be responsible stewards for vast tracks of land and a decentralized population.  Stable and long term planning of how to use and protect the land, sustainably harvest resources, connect human services in challenging geographies, and capitalize on market the opportunities must dominate public thinking.

What we have currently in our current a Federal – Provincial – Municipal system places an unrealistic burden on our provinces who must multitask to satisfy their governmental responsibilities..   . Even within my lifetime  products capable of performing multiple tasks , once considered abenefit, have   now becomeobsolete. Picture a hybrid bicycle. It can get you from A to B, and will work in most conditions.   The thing is, nobody who wants a quality biking experience would buy a hybrid any more.  Instead there are road bikes, cross country mountain bikes, downhill mountain bikes, touring bikes, collapsible bikes, commuters, and fixies.  Whatever bicycle experience you want, it’s best to get a bike built specifically for it rather than to compromise.

Our provinces are a compromise. They focus on neither rural nor urban, but instead attempt to  do both. In rural areas with common traits, separated only by lines drawn on a map, multiple provinces must provide the same service to both sides of the map when a single policy would be better and at lower cost.  The best case in point is the oil and gas industries of North Eastern British Columbia and Saskatchewan… I mean hello, Alberta is right there with an economy designed around oil and gas.  What benefit is there to anyone to have similar structures set up by both the BC and Sask governments to do the same thing?  Lets face it, Victoria is hardly an oil and gas hub…

In urban areas, the provinces act as a middle man to the feds while adding little of value but again at an increased cost.  One must look no further than the ongoing Toronto Subway (mass transit) issues.  While there is certainly plenty of blame to go around, there is little Ontario is adding to the mix by offering money with their own strings, review processes, and ideas.  It’s hard enough for one government to execute on their plans, let alone have to work with a 2nd government and its own election/review cycles.

Lets return to a city state system where regions defined by common environments, economies, interests (rather than provinces with borders set in the 19^th century) make the policy decisions most effective to meet their own specific challenges, where what truly defines how we live also defines how we are governed.  For details on why the maps looks the way it does, on to the next article.

The goal is to increasing the diversity of sailing competitors.  The main strategy in changing the SWC to accomplish this goal is to trim the European calendar while adding events outside of Europe.  This is a shake up to the core of the Olympic sailing community.  Many of the big regattas including the Delta Lloyd (Holland, Keil Week (Germany) and Miami Olympic Classes Regatta (MOCR) are struggling to come to grips with the new structure while the Princess Sophia Trophy, Semaine Olympique Francais, Sail for Gold and Sail Melbourne have already punched their tickets into the future circuit.

Lets examine the premise that moving events from Europe to other places in the world holds merit.  For years, the SWC has included European events as well MOCR and SailMelbourne.  Anyone who has been to Miami or Melbourne in December and January knows just how good these places are to sail.  They are both great places to visit, have great sailing conditions, are travel hubs of their geographic regions, and have nothing beyond their respective distances from Europe holding them back… yet for years, these events have been the lower tier of the WCC in terms of top level participation.

Lets face it, Melbourne is a sports meca!  Melbourne hosts the Formula 1 season opener, a Tennis Grand Slam, the Aussie rules finals, and the the biggest of them all, the Melbourne Cup horse race already on their calendar.  Yet Aussies have an insatiable appetite for sport.  Sail Melbourne should be the highlight of the sailing calendar, yet it languishes far behind the European events in terms of attendance.

Miami can argue it has even more going for it.  Biscayne Bay delivers fantastic sailing conditions and a pleasant climate.  Flights from Europe to Miami are relatively cheap and shipping from Europe can be accomplished in as little as 2 weeks.  Further, Miami is the central hub of winter sailing for both the USA and Canada, guaranteeing a solid competition base for any who travel there to train and race.  Though attendance numbers for MOCR have been steadily increasing over the years, the quality of competition still lags the European events scoring a 1.33 in a 1 to 1.5 scale in 2011.

There are huge rewards for successful host cities to attract the sailors to events.  So if Miami and Melbourne have struggled to attract top sailors to their events, how will eliminating popular European events help out sailing?  The answer is it won’t.  If top European teams don’t support events in Miami or Melbourne, the odds of them heading to Asia, Africa, and South America for World Cup Events has got to be even lower.  This winter, with the entire sailing community down under for the Perth all classes World Championships, Sail Melbourne still struggled to attract large numbers and and a deep fleet of top level competitors.

A far better strategy for ISAF to adopt is to to add WCC events on each continent, leave the European structure as it is, and run programs to help the ‘foreign’ events develop participation.  The primary measure of the quality of these ‘foreign’ events must be participation, both at the top level and grass roots.  There are many things that can be done to encourage participation  ’foreign’ events:

• Like prize money,
• Logistics support,
• Logical calendar timing,
• Significant Media Exposure
• Housing Planning

Every regatta should use participation as the measure of success.  At a point in time that the ‘foreign’ World Cup events are successful, then trimming down the European calendar can be considered.

3 Judges call a rule 42 penalty on a Star in big rolling seas

If ISAF are serious about making the SWC be the driving force of competitive sailing, they need a massive change in priorities.  At least 1/2 their budget should go to the world cup, and of that a max of 20% should go to officials.  Just find a way to get away with less.  Instead a myriad of judges, jury, measurers, and other officials, let the money flow to prize money, travel grants, a coordinated logistics schedule, mass housing at empty college dorms, etc. all to encourage the sailors to attend.

Hi Ben

I read your post about  Continental qualifiers – interesting but I don’t interpret ISAF’s intentions in the same way.

In all the conferences I have attended, there have been two elements that have dominated the qualification system – cost and the need to make Continental Championships more meaningful.  The cost argument is “Why does the whole world have to go to Australia to qualify for an event in the UK?”

ISAF Olympic Commission suggests reducing the number of places available through the Sailing World Championships from 75% to 50% and instead of the remaining places coming through World Championships, getting them through Continental Championships, to make them more accessible.

In the current quad, Canada has to qualify by sending teams to Australia, or failing that to Europe.  Same applies to Asia, Africa, and South America.  ISAF merely suggests changing the second chance to a Continental event which would reduce the costs.

Having read through the report on ISAF’s Intentions, it is easy to see the well intended nature of the proposal.  Unfortunately, the cold hard facts only support a change in 3 of the medals, the laser/radial and RS:X men.  With modest alterations, a 4th, the Women’s RS:X can easily be added to that list.   In order to have 6 or 7  classes participate, quite drastic changes need to be made in the next few months.

I agree with the response above except for ‘merely suggests changing the second chance.’  As a sailor who ‘merely dedicated a decade of life to going fast in circles’, I think it’s pretty darn important that the sailors decide these things on the water in a fair manner.  As the analysis below shows, within the current system that second chance can’t be allocated by continent and still be fair for teams of the world fighting for their shot!  It comes down to the strength of the ‘big’ sailing nations, the limited number of athletes invited to the games, and the allocation of so many medals to shallow Olympic fleets.

The reality – these countries will send a FULL team of sailors no matter what happens with the qualification system, boat selection, or anything else… their systems are just that good: UK, France, Spain, Germany, USA, Australia, Italy, Denmark – 8

Then there are the countries who send very full teams: NZ, Brazil, Netherlands, Canada, China, Austria, Finland, Sweden – 8 – there are more, I just don’t want to pollute the analysis even further.

So there – you’ve got 16 places taken up with the same 16 countries….  not every time, but most of the time… That’s 160 boats going to 16 countries, pretty much… so lets see how the table looks for continental qualification with the real world taken into effect.

Class: The allocated places (total places) – (big teams) =(spots deft) / 5 (continents) = (spots per continental qualifier)

Laser: 48 – 16 = 32 /5 = 6.2

Radial: 39 – 16 = 23 / 5 = 4.8

RS:X Men: 38 – 16 = 22 / 5 = 4.5

RS:X women: 28 – 16 = 12 /5 = 2.4

470 Men: 27 – 54 athletes – 16 = 11 /5 = 2.2

Finn: 25 – 16 = 9 /5 = 1.8

470 Women: 20 – 40 athlete – 16 = 4 = 0.8

49er: 20 -40 athletes – 16 = 4 /5 = 0.8

Star: 16 – 32 people = 16 = 0 = 0

Match Racing: 12 – 36 athletes – 16 = -4

TOTAL 273 boats – 380 athletes

This list illustrates where the opportunities lie for diversification.  4 of the ten classes are wholly unsuitable as there’s very limited room for diverse nations.  Further, I’d argue that there is very limited opportunity in the 470 men, Finn, and RSX:Women as so few remaining spot make them unsuited for continental qualifiers either. Once you average less than 2 spots per continent, that will likely leave some deserving sailor on their sideline, ‘merely’ because their nation borders their buddies nation.  Even assigning 2 spots per continent will surely leave deserving athletes out from some continents while including lesser teams, yet will not contribute to diversity as either team would have contributed to diversity.

So that leaves us with lasers, radials, and RS:X men where there is a fair way to put in place continental qualifiers for Olympics spots.  Doing so in these three classes would lower the cost of competing and bring greater importance to continental events, the stated goal of this program.  There is little downside that I can see.  The elite sailors will head off to compete at the world championships anyway, the also-rans will have more money in their pockets, and the quality of both qualifying competitions and the Olympics will be high.

What ISAF should be asking is, IS THIS ENOUGH?  The answer has to be no!  Making the 3 cheaper classes slightly cheaper will in no way reform sailing and will not nor should not satisfy the IOC.

So what can we do…  It takes a depth of Olympic participation by fleet to make continental qualifiers a viable option – allowing both high quality competition with a fair rate of inclusion for teams outside the core nations.  So there are somethings we can do in RIO and beyond to allow for continental qualifiers to be fair.

The status quo RIO line-up of likely assigned spots:

Laser / Radial (48 / 39)

RS:X Men/Women (38 / 28)

470 Men / Women (25 / 19)

49er / Women’s Skiff (22 / 17)

Finn / Cat (Mixed) (25 / 16)

If Continental Qualifiers are the avenue sailing chooses to improve our lot, this is what it should look like in 2016.  By trading down the doublehanded places to increase our ‘diversity’ classes, we can hold continental qualifiers in the 4 already cheap classes for the 2016 quad.

Laser / Radial (54 / 43)

RS:X Men/Women (44 / 32)

470 Men / Women (21 / 16)

49er / Women’s Skiff (21 / 16)

Finn / Cat (Mixed) (21 / 16)

To further emphasize my points about needed depth to have quality continental qualifiers, this is exactly what Canada did for the classes where there is strength and depth in their continent.  The Canadian Athlete Development Committee knew that the lasers and radials would qualify the county in Perth.  So, instead of sending all the eligible athletes to Europe for the 2nd qualifyier to choose who would get the spot, Canada instead used MOCR as a continental qualifier.  Because that strength and depth is not apparent in any of the other classes in North America, all the other classes do have their Canadian selection regattas in Europe.

Back to the global problem.  With the total Olympic participation unlikely to grow from 380, and the RIO line-up above unlikely to be enough to reform sailing, the only other choice is to be more ruthless with our multi handed classes.  As a double handed sailor my whole life, it pains me to say it, but it must be so.  If sailing is going to grow through continental development it will have to do something like this for 2020:

Laser / Radial (48 / 39)

RS:X Men/Women (38 / 28)

470 Men / Women (25 / 19) Kitesurfing Men / Women (28 / 20)(ed: moth?)

49er / Women’s Skiff (28 / 23)

Finn / Cat (Mixed) (27 / 23)

This kind of format would make most of the classes viable for the continental qualifier system.  Kitesurfing gets added to show off the X-games potential of being on water with wind and waves.  It comes at the expense of the 470, a boat that rewards the classic skills we all grew up learning were important, a painful concession for sailing.  The change isn’t necessary because the 470 isn’t good racing (full disclosure I’m a 49er sailor so can’t contemplate the reverse…) but mostly because with the ISAF squeeze on athlete numbers two in a boat keeps getting harder to justify.  As a side note, when the Star lobby pushes for the 11th medal again, see if you can get some athlete spots too, otherwise you’re just holding up the move to continental qualifiers even more.

In conclusion, if ISAF is going to put diversity as a high priority by shifting the core of the sport as it stands today, they are going to have to be thorough in the process.  It is not enough to blow up the World Cup circuit and haphazardly assign places to continents.  All aspects of the Olympics must be aligned with the goal of diversity if a shift can be made successful.

In the mean time, ISAF should begin the process of continental qualifiers for 2016 in 4 classes.  That should give everyone a chance to get used to the idea before making a full shift in 2020.

This major initiative ISAF is persuing to get better diversity at the Olympics is core to what ISAF does, so a lot is at stake.

The international sailing federation (ISAF) is considering altering the way Olympic berths are allocated for the 2016 games in Rio. Largely, this is a reaction to an IOC request for greater worldwide diversity in sailing.  The technique being discussed is to allocate Olympic berths not by World Championship performance, but instead by Continental Championship performance.  This technique will certainly directly address the desire to have broader participation at the Olympics but will come at a heavy cost, that being having the top sailors compete with each other at for a Gold medal at the Olympics.

Sailing has been making this compromise for a long time already by limiting each country to a single particiapant from each class.  Even if you’re the 2nd best in the world, as the British Finn sailors can attest, you won’t get your shot at glory if the guy who is number 1 is from your country.  Diversity vs. strength is a continueing and difficult question, and many strong old voices within ISAF continue to get it wrong at the core.  This initiative is not wrong at the core level, just a bit misguided at the execution level.

But lets face facts here, participation from every continent might be one way to phrase the discussion, but what we are really talking about here is limited the number of European countries participating… after all, there is no other continent coming even close to dominating any part of sailing… yet each continent can claim success at the highest level, at least in a few classes.  There are the Asian windsurfers, the Aussie/Kiwi broad teams, South American Champions catamarn and Star sailor, a boad USA team, Israeli Windsurfers, and the list goes on.

By forcing continental qualifiers, ISAF would in essence be presribing that the countries that have relatively successful sailing programs already would be easily able to pick up additonal berths accross the rest of the classes.  As team GBR can attest, once the route to success  is known, it is easier to duplicate that success in an adjascent class than it was to figure it out in the first place.

Instead, why not keep the system as it currently stands but put a % limit on the number of berths from ‘any one continent’, ie Europe.  That way, diversity will be achieved but at a much smaller cost to competition and ISAF won’t turn natural training partners against each other… other than the Europeans:(

Lets take the 49er as an example.  There has been a resurgence recently centered in North America.  Would sailing in North America be stronger if teams from the Islands, USA, Canada, and Mexico can continue to work together on a local circuit knowing that they can raise everyone’s level or if they are competing for (say) 2 berths total, and constantly fiight each other for that scarce opportunity?

If the problem is European nations dominating Olympic berths, then ISAF should address the problem directly, but limiting European participation and should not make the rules any more complicated than they need to be… otherwise unintended consequences are sure to follow.

1. Location, location, location – nothing beats great sailing conditions like we have here in Fremantle. The sailors will put up with just about anything if their days on the water are excellent. That’s why Cadiz and Cascais have all been remembered fondly to date, while Qingdao is remembered as a bit of a joke.

2. Embrace social media, don’t regulate it out. Coaches in Perth have been given strict instructions not to bring their cell phones onto the water. The organizers want Perth2011.org to be the first location results get announced. That is a huge mistake. The direct video feed from a tight finish to the ‘fans’ of a sailor is one of the best ways to generate buzz. Why cut that off.

3. Marry media coverage to the racing, don’t just have them dropped on top of each other and hope it all works out. As the Ben Ainsley  punch up proves only too clearly, driving motor boats through an active racecourse is an accident waiting to happen. The 49ers have voted to adopt Theater Style racing after the London games. It is a format the media should be able to thrive on. The extreme sailing series and Americas Cup have also done amazing things with formats and media… though nobody I’ve ever spoken with prefers racing in a windless river…

4. Professionalize what it important. The ISAF model relies on the tireless efforts of volunteers. Too many critical functions are left to these volunteers, however. It’s not for the lack of trying, but volunteers, be they local or international often are shy of the exact level of experience necessary to do the professional job they are asked to accomplish. I can’t help but think a former circuit coach would be able to put a cameraman into a great spot for a photo without ruining the race of the best sailor in the world.

5. Put the athlete’s village in site of the racecourse and flags. A massive athlete’s village has been erected here in Fremantle on the grounds of the local university. Unfortunately, it is just a bit too far away from the boat park so that sailors can’t hang out there because they can’t see the signal flags that tell them when to race. Nobody wants to miss a start to sit on an oversized piece of furniture…

6. The Perth2011 organizers jumped on the trend to partner the regatta with concerts thereby bringing the sailors and public together. This is a fantastic strategy… but when you invite INXS to play and then charge the sailors a $100 entry you’re shooting yourself in the foot. A better choice is an up and coming local band with a grass roots following. The band gets a shot to step up and the sailors get to meet real locals who also have some passion… and nobody is paying $100.

7. Reuse the same sailing website. Every event organization develops their own web resource for their regatta. Be it Delta Lloyd, Sail for Gold, or here in Perth… the result is a ton of work and money spent for a website that must learn all the same lessons of those before it. As the Perth2011 regatta organizers found out only too embarrassingly on the first day when the results system crashed and they couldn’t publish the scores on the first day. Furthermore the navigation is always different and the public must always search to find out where to follow the event from. Don’t charge the sailors for the end of event party. An epic party is planned for Saturday, Dec 10th. Unfortunately, the organizers forgot to ask how much a sailor normally spends to go to a party, which is usually $0. Instead it was priced at the local rate, $225! The sailors just want to go hang out with each other anyways so that was never going to work.

8. Containerize all regatta equipment so it can be used event to. The $22m spent on this event is the entire budget for every sailing team in the world (taking out the brits). If ISAF and the IOC want sailing to spread to the world then there should be a good plan in place to do so. Blowing up the world cup circuit is not a solution to itself. First off, ISAF should have figured out a way to get everyone to attend MOCR and SailMelbourne. Each event in itself is a top notch event. Yet for years attendance has lagged behind the European events. Supplying shipping and having a coherent schedule would do wonders for these events and would likely get the top 25 in each class doing the whole circuit. Then and only then would be the time to venture farther out in the world.

9. Timing between events. Make it physically possible to ship the fleets between the world cup events. For example, it is physically impossible to get a boat from Perth 2011 to Miami Olympic Classes regatta. The earliest a shipping container can get delivered is Jan 26th, but the event starts on Jan 22nd. If either Perth or MOCR were in a different time slot it would have been a nice circuit to hit.

10. What’s your call… number 10 could be so many other things!

1. Location, location, location – nothing beats great sailing conditions like we have here in Fremantle. The sailors will put up with just about anything if their days on the water are excellent. That’s why Cadiz and Cascais have all been remembered fondly to date, while Qingdao is remembered as a bit of a joke.

2. Embrace social media, don’t regulate it out. Coaches in Perth have been given strict instructions not to bring their cell phones onto the water. The organizers want Perth2011.org to be the first location results get announced. That is a huge mistake. The direct video feed from a tight finish to the ‘fans’ of a sailor is one of the best ways to generate buzz. Why cut that off.

3. Marry media coverage to the racing, don’t just have them dropped on top of each other and hope it all works out. As the Ben Ainsley  punch up proves only too clearly, driving motor boats through an active racecourse is an accident waiting to happen. The 49ers have voted to adopt Theater Style racing after the London games. It is a format the media should be able to thrive on. The extreme sailing series and Americas Cup have also done amazing things with formats and media… though nobody I’ve ever spoken with prefers racing in a windless river…

4. Professionalize what it important. The ISAF model relies on the tireless efforts of volunteers. Too many critical functions are left to these volunteers, however. It’s not for the lack of trying, but volunteers, be they local or international often are shy of the exact level of experience necessary to do the professional job they are asked to accomplish. I can’t help but think a former circuit coach would be able to put a cameraman into a great spot for a photo without ruining the race of the best sailor in the world.

5. Put the athlete’s village in site of the racecourse and flags. A massive athlete’s village has been erected here in Fremantle on the grounds of the local university. Unfortunately, it is just a bit too far away from the boat park so that sailors can’t hang out there because they can’t see the signal flags that tell them when to race. Nobody wants to miss a start to sit on an oversized piece of furniture…

6. The Perth2011 organizers jumped on the trend to partner the regatta with concerts thereby bringing the sailors and public together. This is a fantastic strategy… but when you invite INXS to play and then charge the sailors a $100 entry you’re shooting yourself in the foot. A better choice is an up and coming local band with a grass roots following. The band gets a shot to step up and the sailors get to meet real locals who also have some passion… and nobody is paying $100.

7. Reuse the same sailing website. Every event organization develops their own web resource for their regatta. Be it Delta Lloyd, Sail for Gold, or here in Perth… the result is a ton of work and money spent for a website that must learn all the same lessons of those before it. As the Perth2011 regatta organizers found out only too embarrassingly on the first day when the results system crashed and they couldn’t publish the scores on the first day. Furthermore the navigation is always different and the public must always search to find out where to follow the event from. Don’t charge the sailors for the end of event party. An epic party is planned for Saturday, Dec 10th. Unfortunately, the organizers forgot to ask how much a sailor normally spends to go to a party, which is usually $0. Instead it was priced at the local rate, $225! The sailors just want to go hang out with each other anyways so that was never going to work.

8. Containerize all regatta equipment so it can be used event to. The $22m spent on this event is the entire budget for every sailing team in the world (taking out the brits). If ISAF and the IOC want sailing to spread to the world then there should be a good plan in place to do so. Blowing up the world cup circuit is not a solution to itself. First off, ISAF should have figured out a way to get everyone to attend MOCR and SailMelbourne. Each event in itself is a top notch event. Yet for years attendance has lagged behind the European events. Supplying shipping and having a coherent schedule would do wonders for these events and would likely get the top 25 in each class doing the whole circuit. Then and only then would be the time to venture farther out in the world.

9. Timing between events. Make it physically possible to ship the fleets between the world cup events. For example, it is physically impossible to get a boat from Perth 2011 to Miami Olympic Classes regatta. The earliest a shipping container can get delivered is Jan 26th, but the event starts on Jan 22nd. If either Perth or MOCR were in a different time slot it would have been a nice circuit to hit.

10. What’s your call… number 10 could be so many other things!