Olympic Silver Medallist and multiple World Champion in the Tornado and F18, Darren Bundock, response to ISAF’s decision last Friday. This is what he had to say as posted on SailJuice Blog (www.sailjuiceblog.com) Hi Andy,
What can I say? I am shocked, disappointed and totally confused. I have lost all faith in the ISAF and especially the council decision-making process. Sailing has taken a massive backwards step not only eliminating the multihull but not implementing the women’s high performance skiff or the women’s multihull. Just keeping the doublehanded dinghy and not moving with the times.
Our sport had the chance to take a massive jump in London 2012 (finally an Olympics possibly with wind) but our sport has been destroyed by a council made up of inactive un-youthful ex-sailors living in the past.
The multihull has been discriminated against, it was the easy option. Despite multihulls making up for 25% of the sailing fraternity we have very little representation on the ISAF council. They are all elderly keelboat sailors. I’m surprised the multihull got so close to defeating the keelboats. I am at fault in not believing ISAF would discriminate against a whole diverse discipline in the Olympics.
The lobbying, pub parties and deals that go on in the corridors before the ISAF Council meeting - under my definition - spells corruption. How can they throw out the Events committee recommendations? After all, they are ISAF’s experts that are in touch with the sailing communities.
What positive thing has the ISAF achieved in recent years? I’m struggling to think of any.
ISAF have agreed to have the sailing for the 2008 Olympics in Qingdao - a place known for no wind. How can this happen? How can we make the sport attractive and TV-friendly in a place that has an average of 3 to 4 knots at that time of the year. It’s like having the Winter Olympics in the Caribbean with no snow.
ISAF have failed to put together a World Sailing Series. How easy would that have been even if they just used the current Grade 1 events? Tornado & 49er started it with the introduction of the Volvo Champions Race, attracting 10,000 spectators throughout the weekend.
They continue to have Grade 1 events in shitty locations like Medemblik, Kiel and Hyeres. The weather conditions in these locations at the time of the year are appalling. Why would anyone want to go to Medemblik and sail in the grey overcast conditions, continually raining and freezing?
We still have a World ranking system that does not reflect reality. I say this even though I am at the top of the World rankings at the moment. But there was a period when I won the World and European Championships but was still ranked 14th! Plus Olivier Backes (FRA) had retired for 18 months before he was out of the top 10!
They have failed to create and undermined a youth multihull development program. There are so many youth multihull development boats available but in the youth trials, ISAF would not allow boats with centreboards. Even an Optimist has a centreboard!. It’s not rocket science that when it’s shallow it needs to come up. Even kids can come to terms with that.
Meanwhile, life is good if you are a 70kg monohull sailor..Do you sail:
1. Laser 2. 470, or 3. 49er?
If you’re a woman high performance sailor like Carolijn Brouwer, you have zero options as you can’t even revert back to 49er, as it’s men only. Yngling or 470 would just be to painful to go back to.
Even one high-performance woman’s class would be beneficial, whether it be a skiff or there are many cat classes suitable like the Viper - a 16 foot high-performance catamaran, wing mast, spinnaker and double trapeze. (www.ahpc.com.au/m_viper1.htm).
Women’s multihull did not stand a chance as ISAF have no idea how many woman are active in the multihull world, with 100 alone competing in a one-day event each year in Texel.
Imagine how good the sport would have been covered if we had:
Men & Women Singlehander, M&W Doublehander (preferably high performance), M&W Sailboard, M&W Multihull, M&W keelboat. How simple, all aspects covered.
So how do we save sailing before ISAF undermine the sport completely?
Multihulls need to break away from ISAF. After all, they have shown they only have monohull interests in mind. We need the International Multihull Sailing Federation. How long will the multihull stay in the Youth Worlds? It has already struggled to stay.
We need to endorse the concepts of people like Roland Gäbler (three-time Tornado World Champion and Bronze medal winner) and activate the “Sailing Revolution Teams” and activate the “The Sailing Dream Tour”. A Multihull Grand Prix series with paid TV coverage, corporate entertainment and spectator focus in ideal locations and offer the Formula 1 of sailing to the world. We don’t need ISAF.
Multihull can then apply to IOC for a separate spot in the Games, just like canoeing did to rowing.
The multihull is not dead, it’s just been set free! We have the ultimate boat!
