Top Club

At the risk of turning into the Emma Harris Fan Club, I have to say that once again she is to be found at the centre of another great initiative for dinghy sailing. This one, however, goes way beyond her own pet subject of the Lark class, but has implications for the health of dinghy sailing generally in the UK.

The press release from Pete Vincent, her partner in this new venture, says: "Have you ever wondered which clubs really are the best in the country?  Before now, it has never been possible to compare clubs in fleet racing, as a team, on a national level - so it has never been possible to truly gauge the strongest clubs in the country."  As a result, Pete and Emma have joined forces to launch a National Championship for Clubs, called Top Club UK.

The inaugural Top Club will take place at Grafham Water SC on 18/19 September 2004 and all RYA affiliated clubs are eligible to enter. Each club will put forward a team of three boats, with one boat from each PY grouping - fast, medium and slow. Dinghies with a PY number (not class supplied) between 800 and 1450 are eligible, but not catamarans or keelboats.

Racing will be held on three different courses, one for each PY group and the results from each group will be combined to give each team their total points; the winning club being that with the lowest point score overall. All makes sense so far, although from a personal perspective it is a shame that 49ers are the only high-performance boat to be excluded, due to their PY of 747 falling outside the parameters. At the other end of the scale, Optimists, the most popular fleet in the country, will not be represented due to their PY of 1646. But it is hard to run fair handicap racing across such a wide spectrum of speeds, so I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere.

Pete says the main aim of the event is to build enthusiasm in the club scene: "At Open Meetings we all sail under our club burgee and many of us are proud to represent that club. At the moment, there is no competition where all clubs can compete on a level playing field to find out which are the strongest clubs. Team racing is too specialist, so our idea is to run fleet racing - which is what the majority of club sailors are used to."

The idea of filling a three-boat team from three different parts of the PY range not only means Top Club will see all types of boats represented at Grafham, but prevents clubs with a particularly strong fleet fielding three boats from that fleet at the expense of other club sailors. Pete and Emma hope that by making clubs select a fast-, medium- and slow-handicapper, that every club member will get a shot at representing their club at the regatta. "We want to have an event that will attract good sailors but also tests the overall strength of a club, not just how many good sailors they have in one class" says Pete.

Pete and Emma say the aim of Top Club is to help fertilise the grass roots of sailing, and that to keep sailing as a national sport healthy and growing, it's the club scene that's most important.  Reflecting this emphasis, Top Club prizes will focus on benefiting the club rather than the individual sailor.

Numbers will be restricted to the first 80 clubs that enter. You can find out more and register your club's interest by visiting the Top Club website at www.topclub.org.uk or by contacting Pete Vincent on 01934 733045/07813 899043 pete@topclub.org.uk or Emma Harris on 07989 393916 emma@topclub.org.uk.

Henderson defends ‘no discards'

Last Rolltacks I reported on the ‘no-discard' decision for next year's Olympic Regatta. It seems that the decision is popular with pretty much everyone except the sailors who are going to be affected by it. ISAF president Paul Henderson is no stranger to controversy, however, and some would say he even revels in it. "I am very pleased that the Drop Race issue has caused such comments," he says. "I have heard from over 100 people about it and 90 per cent are in favour."

Henderson has made no secret of his dislike for the way sailors are flouting some of the basic rules of the road. His bête noire has been what he perceives as widespread abuse of the propulsion rule, Rule 42, but he feels equally strongly about sailors hitting marks and not taking penalty turns. He says the 720 rule for hitting marks and the standard one or two discards in a series have "changed the game and made the sailors very aggressive and disrespectful of the rules of the game. No Drops makes them sail more conservatively. They will still push the rules, as that is what competitors do, but this will produce some restraint.

"The issues being brought up, which should be addressed in other ways, are:

  • OCS: I have been preaching for years that how race committees handle OCS is wrong.  The sailors must know if they are over the line immediately. It is wrong for many reasons not to do so. I recommend that ISAF instruct the Race Officers to do so at Athens. The easy solution is to notify the sailor and if they must get a penalty for so doing then they return and can start after a 1 minute delay from the original start signal. I have for years suggested that each sailor have a simple radio and be told of OCS, course changes and even wind direction at the weather mark. This is simple, do-able, cheap and fair.

  • Time Limit: There was one 470 Race at the Athens Test Event when the Time Limit kicked in and only four boats finished. With or without a Drop this was a big bonus for the four but this should not be a reason for the Drop. What should be done is that, when this happens, the boats not able to make the Time Limit all get the last finisher's score plus 5 points, or be scored DNF which ever is less. It has always been unfair that when the wind drops that those who do not make the Time Limit are scored as DNF."

These both seem like sensible options. His on-board OCS solution is really only viable in the heady realms of Olympic sailing. But where there is the money to spend on this technology and when we are talking about people's livelihoods - as we are in the professional ranks of Olympic sailors - then why not use such technology to make lives easier. To implement this would be sailing's equivalent of what rugby, cricket and football have done in using TV replays to help an umpire or referee make a correct decision at crucial moments. How many times have sailors been able to produce video evidence from a coach boat to back up their claim that they were never over the line in the first place? Too many for comfort, in my experience.

To take the technology a step further, perhaps a GPS transponder on each boat could be used to determine exactly which boats were over in a general recall situation. It would potentially negate the need ever to have a general recall again. Again, the cost of implementation might be too much in the dinghy world for anything other than high-level Olympic events, but having witnessed incessant general recalls recently at the highly competitive Mumm 30 World Championships in Elba, such technology seems well worth experimenting with. When you think that a Mumm 30 costs in the region of £70,000 and a race officer is faced with cramming in 11 or 12 races into just a four-day regatta, the cost of a transponder and the associated technology would soon justify itself.

As for Henderson's alternative to the Time Limit problem, he is spot on. Sometimes sailing is a lucky sport, and light winds bring out the luck more than any other condition. Adding five points to everybody's score, bar those that finished inside the limit, seems like a great compromise. I know it is not fashionable to agree with Paul Henderson, who at times has done a great job of alienating certain factions of the sailing world with his ebullient and at times arrogant approach to sports administration, but he does occasionally come up with some good ideas too. Credit where credit's due.

Fireball Worlds

Competing against an established world champion is always a psychological challenge. It's not just that they're good, it's the fact that they've done it before. They have believed enough in themselves to be able to stand on top of the podium and take the plaudits and the pressure that goes with the status of world champion. It's why rugby pundits predicted such a tight final between England and Australia at the World Cup. Everyone believed England to have the superior firepower, but the experts said Australia would be hard to beat because of two things: home advantage and the confidence of being the reigning champions.

So when you take the reigning world champion away, it opens the field right up. Suddenly, half the competitors think they can make this their championship. That is the situation with the 2004 Fireball World Championships due to take place at Adelaide Sailing Club early in the new year. All the recent World Champions have come from our own shores, but none of them are making the trip to Australia. Chips Howarth and Vyv Townend won't be defending the title they won in Kenya earlier this year, because Vyv is due to become a dad, so it is up to the likes of European Champions Andy Smith and James Meldrum and UK National Champions Kevin Hope & Rob Gardner to fly the flag for GBR. I have heard RS400 and Endeavour Champion Roger Gilbert from Surrey is crewing for Irish National Champion and UK Open Champion Shane McCarthy, so who knows what flag they will be flying?

There are some other strong European entries, notably Tomas Musil from the Czech Republic, who is currently doing a 470 Olympic campaign. France have a very strong team this year with Franc Juin who finished 5th in the 2003 Worlds and pairing of Frederic Mouches and Jean-Francois Nouel (a.k.a. Cantona). The brothers of Eric and Ruedi Moser will be heading up the Swiss challenge along with Kurt Venhoda and Sonja Zaugg who finished 7th in the 2003 World Championships. There are also entries from Germany, Canada and Japan.

However the big unknown are the Australians. Having not been at the last couple of World Championships the question is who's going fast from downunder? Rumours have been heard that Brett Young and Alan Blenkle are making a strong bid to win on home territory and then there's the challenge from the ever-consistent Chris and Heather Payne. Ben Schulz and his Australian crew, Adam Parker are aiming for a place in the top ten and Robin Inns and Philip Bowey are setting their sights on the top five. They've got some real unknowns too, fast crews from other fleets who've joined the Fireballs for a crack at the title - Gregg Allison and his crew from Australian Sharpies and juniors, Shane and Andrew Hughes from the 470 Development Squad.

470 crews are always dangerous, because they're generally very professional in their approach, sailing a boat that's similar to the Fireball but harder to keep going, and they do truckloads of racing and training. So the trophy is going out with the Brits but will they be able to bring it back home again?