I read with interest the lobbying that went ahead when the US cat sailing community got wind of US Sailing's proposal to ISAF to omit Cat sailing from the Olympics. As I recollect, the lobbying was sucessful and the submission was ammended before it got to ISAF. IS THIS CORRECT?

The reason that i ask, is that the RYA [GBR governing body] have quietly submitted to stop supporting cat sailing at olympic level and get rid of it totaly at youth level. This has outraged the UK cat sailors and we are trying to decide what to do. Methinks that we are too late to get it withdrawn.
Any advice?

Mike Grandfield (the US Tornado Class President) is the guy behind the protest in the US. He would be the one to talk to about the logistics of a protest.

However, since the ISAF Meeting is in November, you might be too late.

Go with a grass roots movement. Let's schedule all multihull races at the same venue and dates as Opti, Laser and 420 regattas.

The kids will see how fast and powerful multihulls are (and how good looking the boats and crew are!), and the rest will fall into place....

ISAF changed the schedule for submissions such that the previous US submission became irrelevant. That provided the breathing room needed to do some lobbying before the latest submission was penned. Submissions are currently due for the November meeting of the ISAF Events Committee, where the events (NOT the equipment) for the 2012 Games will be discussed and voted upon. My understanding is that submissions can be amended up to and including the meeting date, should the RYA delegation wish to do so. The trick is getting them to see a reason to change their mind.

Good luck, mate - don't give up, keep your cool, present reasoned counterpoint and you'll get where you need to be. Make sure you understand the RYA delegation's position; check out http://www.sailing.org/15189.php for agendas and past minutes.

And dont forget to mobilize so the RYA understands the numbers behind catamaran sailing. Setting up an online petition like Mr Young did is probably a very good move. You can probably find much you can use in his text. Things need to happen fast if you are to succeed.

Why didn't you find out before now? Come to think about it, I have not seen my own national assoc. submission.. Hmm..

Why do I get the impression that NAs think multihulls are the ones who should be dropped now that the IOC is putting the pressure on? Are we still the stepchildren of sailing in their minds?

All MNA Submissions are here:
http://www2.sailing.org/meetings/2007_Submissions.htm

I think the guy at Edison Sailing Center would be glad to have us.

Interesting. The US omits windsurfing and the UK omits multihulls and keelboats (but leave an open slot unspecified per gender). Both endorse both two person dinghies and two person high performance dinghies.

I would have thought there was a stronger case for a single two person dinghy class per gender in order to allow both windsurfing and keelboats.

Also interesting is the Tornado Association's claim that 1/4 of all racing worldwide is in multihulls. Is that credible?

And it does appear that the RYAs submission is already locked down. I seem to recall that the strategy of multihull sailors in the US was to petition either ISAF or the IOC directly to have the US submission thrown out. Someone will have a better memory than me about this.

I always found it funny to see so many different but basically the same dinghy classes at the Olympics.

What is the difference between a Laser and a Europe ? Come to think of it what is the REAL difference between a 49-er and a 470 ?

If one would have :

A dinghy
A keelboat
A windsurfer
And a multihull

then yes, you would have 4 sufficiently different sailing craft in your olympics. Make it gender specific and you have 8 classes. What on earth is the added value of having a Laser AND a Europe class at the olympics. Sailors from either class can easily switch from one to the other.

To me the Olympics are an example of one of the worst kinds of bureaucracy. Powerful as hell, but also as dumb as I don't know what.

Wouter

Wouter,

switching from a Laser to Europe (the latter is not an olympic class anymore) is not trivial. The Laser is one design, which require one design sailors as well.
The same goes for the 470 and the 49er, different techniques and skills are needed in addition to the skills all sailors need. Surely you are playing the devils advocate here?

Can you tell us about the skills required for the 470 that are not required by the 49er or other classes? (I haven't sailed either).

Do you consider that the skills required to sail a 470 are sufficiently distinctive and worth competing on that they make it less important to have a competition that tests the skills involved in sailing a catamaran? If a cat sailor wanted to go to the Olympics and there was no Olympic multihull, what class would you suggest they aim for? The 49er?

Wow
9/21/2007 7:22 am
I agree with Wouter

I can take one example. Spi handling: The 49er have a big assymetric on a bowsprit. The 470 have a symmetric spi on a regular pole. Handling these two different sails require different skills.



Did you get the impression that I somehow tought cats are inferior to monos? If you did, of course I dont think so. The IOC and ISAF have a whole set of criteria for selecting olympic classes, which leads to "interesting" decision like the Yngling as the ladies keelboat. Do I like it? No. Do I think the rules for selection to be quite good? Yes. As a sidetrack, I wonder how the 49er came to be an olympic class? Anyway, what I do know is that the selection is a political process, not neccesarily a rational process.
If a cat sailor wanted to go olympic and there was no cat event, what do I think he should choose? The class he tought he had the best chance of winning in of course. What class would that be? I would think the Star class out of the current classes. Why? Becouse the rig is so highly tuneable, but he could probably be just as well/badly off in any of the other classes. The skills developed in the 470 on the other hand would make him attractive on largish monohulls afterwards.. As you understand, I have a pretty broad view on the olympic classes. I dont think it really matters that much which class you decide to try in and which you come from as you will spend insane amounts of time in the boat to become good enough anyway. Perhaps the windsurfer would be a notch harder than the rest come to think of it..

Farking Hell - Wouter you done it again , the important bit of the thread is in its name , submissions to ISAF , you can argue other stuff elsewhere , its shocking that a nations representative body can put in such a sweepingly biased submission in such an under hand manner and in such a way perhaps its too late to do something about it.

Its time we get together and do something about it , dont forget every uk sailor is part of the funding stream of RYA uk as such we should have a voice ,I think theres a lot more of us than they consider , otherwise they wouldn't have even considered wiping out youth cat sailing .

Sorry about that.

Wouter

I spent some time going through the submissions. Either I missed something (major), or I'm pretty shocked that no one has mentioned that the vast majority of MNA submissions don't really talk about multiple classes, especially multihulls. Most of them seem really short. Did I miss something?

Mike

Agree. Many of these submissions almost seem guaranteed to be unrepresentative of their national membership (women's keelboat sailing is not the only kind of sailing done in NZ).

Makes sense. One question: what crew for the dinghy and multihull: singlehanded or doublehanded? Having both would mean two more classes and four events.

If choosing strictly by Olympic philosophy (best man/woman wins), singlehanding is mandatory. Also, the equipment should be as popular and simple as possible. My hypothetical list would be:

Kite
Windsurfer
Singlehanded dinghy (with asymetric spi)
Singlehanded multihull (with asymetric spi)

It would not be easy for old minds to accept, but makes perfect Olympic sense.

The rest of us can go to any of the hundreds of venues available everywhere. In this scenario, the World Championships would receive more atention from ISAF and would become more important than the Olympics - as they should be!

Oh yeah!!

I started to reply to your pre-edited version, but you've anticipated my comment <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Now we can resume the F17/F16 debate! <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Ohh yeah !




Ooops! I'm doing it again aren't I ?

Sorry

Wouter