Maybe I would have best phrased that as "... the end of ISAF as we know it."

ISAF, my dear friends is all about having control.

Currently they can force whatever they decide to do (example of this have been plenty recently) because they are the ONLY viable organisation for all kinds of sailing at this time.

They can FORCE classes to pay membership fees to ISAF because they WILL make your life miserable as soon as you grow to a level where you want to hold larger international events.

When you become a (forced) member of the ISAF organisation you sign away any media rights that you class me have. To the ISAF organisation of course. You also hand over effect control over your class rules to them. Everything must be approved by some ISAF committee and it must be done on their time line.

Basically they muscle themselves in on your revenue stream and class control structure. Of course they plegde to repay you by "bettering the sport of sailing" and if you are lucky they throw you a few crumbs once in a while. Lucky here probably means "being a monohull class" or having a few high placed sailors with blazers sailing you boat type. (That is partly a joke guys !)

What happens if a rival international organisation comes into existance as an alternative ?

They loose their control. Afterall how much control can the rowers excert over the canoe guys now ?

Who is to say that other classes like the moths and maybe high performance skiff for women find it more attractive to join the other organisation ?

If ISAF asks you 3000 bucks for just accepting your class membership application form (not garanteed to be approved mind you) what are your choiced now ? And what will your choice be when a rival organisation is around.

If IOC wants a more lean and exiting sailing venue at the Olympics and ISAF decided again to go for the star and match racing, then how with the IOC look upon a rival organisation who can throw out the boring events and replace them with Skiffs, Multies and Moths ?

Right now ISAF can pressure the IOC to go along as their is no alternative for IOC to turn too short of throwing out the sailing altogether. Again ISAF has a good measure of control because it is currently the only one. That is probably the reason why ISAF feels it can largely ignore the IOC recommendations. They are gambling on the fact that IOC will consider dropping sailing altogether as too extreme an option.

They can't make that gamble when IOC can shop elsewhere.

Without these control principles that come with being to only organisation on this level, ISAF will quickly be regarded for what it is : an inflexible bureacracy that costs more money then it is really worth.

With a viable alternative by its side it will either have to find a way to shape up or accept being marginalized.

Any organisation of this size and standing will find the second prospect appauling and the first prospect too daunting to consider without being absolutely being forced to do it. Either way they will determine that it is alot more attractive to prevent that whole situation altogether. One of the best way to do that is coopting.

You know the tricks. Offer a position as official to some person that would otherwise be capable of creating a rival organisation. Promise the others a committee or two and some future rewards after some more research, rapports, and a formal vote that they assure you is nothing to worry about etc.

Rest assured they will try hard to NOT shape-up ! And try very hard to prevent any serious challenge from developping.


And that is where I fundamentally disagree with anybody who wants to "work from within" while at the same time discouraging any serious efforts at forming an alternative.

Any skilled negociator would actually embrace such efforts ! Why, because they strenghen his negociating position. Because this time has both a wapon and a reward to extract concrete benefits from the other side (and delivery upon them). Because, he can't promise any returns on their desires unless he has some impressive results to take back to his party. And of course this negociator is always very sorry that his hands are tight in this way. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

That is eventually the way it always works. Irrespectibally of heaps of well meaning statements, visions, passions and "lets try to all get along" and other hollow trash.

Wouter