Its all over, roll on 2012!

Does sailing have a future as an Olympic sport?

Whilst sailing has been an Olympic sport for the past 100 years it is unlikely that unless we resolve the 'problems' with the presentation of our sport that it will enjoy another hundred years! I am sure all sports say they are 'different' and need 'special' treatment, but sailing does have some unique sports management qualities - to say the least!

There are no other sports where so many athletes are competiting at one time on the same course and who can influence each others' performance to such a high degree. Thus we have a fairly complex set of rules, procedures, policies and interpritations to govern those interactions.

The Racing Rules of Sailing are only one aspect of these 'rules'. Most competitors and officials would agree that the 'boat-to-boat' aspects of the rules are quite understandingable, stable, and well applied (particularly when racing is umpired!) - at least until the new rules for 2009-2012 are published!

What does seem to be letting our sport down at the moment is the interralationship between the various other rules; Measurement Regulation, class rules, Sailing Instructions, Notice of Race, Coach Boat Regulations, Rule 51 (of the Olympic Charter), Equipment Rules of Sailing, and the rest of the 21 documents that govern this event in one way or another. The result is that in the main, may be, most situations are understandable by the expereinced few but totally unintelligible for the majority of the public, our ultimate 'sponsors'.

We end up having situations; where there are two boats placed first in a race, where one country's athletes are competing in another country's boat (or equipment in Olympic terminology), where the additional identification - national flags, decals, and country letters - fall off or ruin years of sail development work because its the wrong material, where boats are reaching into so called 'windward' marks, where athletes and their support personnel spend three days rubbing down equipment because of faults in the manufacturing, where the data available to the media on mark roundings is inaccurate and misleading, where the top sports media from around the world are literally lost for words because of a lack of clarity of the situations, where competitors are disqualified because of minor infractions, .........

Yet the major inconsistencies in our sport are left untackled; to use a curretly popular phrase, maybe we have an 'elephant in the room'? We have a lot to do in the next four years. The key question is; are those who govern our sport (and, being an ISAF International Judge and International Umpire, I include myself in that group) ready, willing and able to take on the challenge?