You might be forgiven for thinking that the 400 athletes talented and fortunate enough to be competing at an Olympic Games would be there to give their best and to sail their socks off. Whether a medal results from their efforts is another matter, but at least they can go home knowing they'd done all they could to make their nation proud.
Well get this. Here's an excerpt from an email from ISAF president Paul Henderson who, with less than two months to Athens is still caught up in disputes with MNAs over allocating wild card entries to the final few sailors yet to be selected. By the way, MNA is ISAF-speak for Member National Authority, of which the RYA is the British MNA. But enough TLAs for the time being. Here's what Mr Henderson had to say:
"One large MNA informed me the morning of the Sydney Opening Ceremonies they would not enter in two classes, and another marched in the Opening with their team leader and the two never appeared again at the regatta. One NOC [National Olympic Committee] tried to enter an official in the Laser when the person had never sailed in their life - they just wanted the accreditation."
How this makes the seriously talented sailors feel, who haven't managed to qualify for the Games, I can't imagine. I've recounted a few hard luck stories in recent months of sailors who have missed their moment in Athens, notably Adam Beashel and Ed Smythe and their missing 49er. I bumped into Adam recently and I didn't realise just how bad it was.
Their boat had made it from New Zealand to Cyprus - a proverbial stone's throw from Greece - but a dockers' strike had prevented it making the final leg to Athens. Adam asked if there was a ferry that he could take to bring the 49er back to Athens himself. He was told there wasn't. This was with two weeks to go to the beginning of the World Championships. A week later and still no movement on the containers. "Why don't you take the ferry and get it yourself?" someone offered helpfully. "What ferry? There is no ferry," Adam replied. Apparently there was, but too late, he had to charter someone else's spare boat, and finished a few measly points behind the Swedish team, the qualifiers for the final spot at the Games.
Dutch debacle
And the latest hard luck story I've heard was from Digby Fox, these days a sailing TV producer but a name that some readers will recall as the one-time assistant editor of this very magazine. Digby was out filming Spa Regatta in Holland, and heartbreaking story of the week was of local Laser sailor Marc de Hass. Although the Netherlands was already qualified in the Laser, de Hass had to fulfil the stringent qualification requirements of his own MNA. He was looking good for achieving the required target of a top 8 placing at Spa, especially when in the final race he was lying a clear second down the final run, with a good gap either side of him. He wasn't going to catch the leader, but nor was he going to relinquish second to the chasing pack some distance behind. So there doesn't seem much reason why de Hass should have felt the need to do a bit of naughty ooching or pumping.
But then the on-the-water jury motored up to him and slapped a yellow flag RR42 penalty on him, his second of the week. A first penalty, you may recall, is an immediate 720, but a second offence results in instant disqualification from that race. Marc de Hass lost his second place in the final heat, and finished 9th overall, one tantalising place away from qualification. From what Digby told me, Kiel Week still offered a final chance of salvation. Looking at his scores on the Kiel Week website however, it appears de Hass scorched out of the blocks in Germany with placings of 2,4,1. But after that he went into a tail spin and finished 16th overall. I guess that means the Netherlands sailing association won't be giving him a plane ticket to Athens.
How de Hass feels about the jobsworth jury member in Spa who took his chance away, is probably pretty similar to the way Sol Campbell feels about Swiss football referee Urs Maier after his disallowed goal in the European Cup in Lisbon. Fortunately our sport is not put quite so much at the mercy of dodgy decision making as in field sports like football or rugby, but as I've said before this three yellow flags rule is way out of proportion to the crime being committed. Let's hope that when we're watching the sailing on TV in Athens, we don't get a repeat of that sickening ‘we wuz robbed' feeling that overtook the nation after the Portugal v England game.
Penalty practice
Talking of TV, apparently the only tickets that are sold out for the Olympics so far are the swimming finals and all sailing events. Please BBC, take note. It wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say we've got more medal potential in the British sailing team than the rest of the British Olympic team put together. So please BBC, turn your TV cameras in the medal-winning direction for more than 10 minutes.
And it's not just us Yachts and Yachting readers who like watching the sailing. Ben Ainslie's match race with Robert Scheidt was said to be one of the most memorable moments from Sydney, even if most viewers didn't understand what on earth was going on. It's quite likely we'll see some match racing this time too, as some of the medals are unlikely to be decided until the final race.
It's sailing's version of the penalty shoot-out, a ruthless way of resolving a contest that bears little resemblance to the main game itself. Any sailor with serious intent on a medal in Athens will doubtless be putting aside time in their training schedule to practise this black art. It was interesting to note the mix of reactions that Ainslie's aggressive approach caused last time - a mix of horror and admiration that a British sportsman could go about dismantling his opponent in such an unsporting and unBritish fashion. But rules is rules, and Ben contravened no racing rules to win his gold medal. He did it fair and square.
Unsporting behaviour has not been unknown in the Games however. Such was Rodney Pattison's dominance in the Flying Dutchman when he won back-to-back gold medals in Acapulco 1968 and Munich 1972, that he carried a spare rudder around in the boat. This was in case someone got a little too close while ducking his transom on a port/starboard crossing, and ‘accidentally' swiping his rudder off.
Rudder bother
We could have done with a spare rudder at the recent 14 open meeting at Hayling Island. A pre-start bearaway before the first race saw the rudder stock shear off the transom, and we were left to watch the racing in 18-20 knots and lumpy seas while tied to the back of the committee boat. At least race officer Zeb Elliott was kind enough to lob Mars Bars and bananas at the monkeys, while we waited for our rudderless tow home across Hayling bar. We weren't the only ones, another unlucky team suffered a similar fate in their brand new boat, while James Fawcett and Dave Dubrovnik (yes, them again, winning the Bloody Mary and getting struck by lightning in Garda and they pull this stunt just to get into Rolltacks yet again) crossed the finish line in the first heat and saw their rig fall over the side seconds afterwards.
It's funny how often people fall in immediately after crossing finish lines. To be fair to Fawcett and Dubrovnik, there wasn't a lot they could do about their mishap, but being moored off the back of the committee boat afforded us a grandstand view of others as they crossed the line, relaxing for a moment, and promptly falling in. Fortunately, the carbon masts on 14s seem to do a good job of preventing the boats turning turtle, so righting them after a capsize is not too much of a drama. Unless of course you've forgotten to do up the zip on your drysuit. This is what happened to John McKenna, newly teamed up with Mike Lennon after an 18-month break from sailing. John, who works for Offshore Challenges (the company founded by Mark Turner and Ellen MacArthur) has just finished organising The Transat race. This was packed with drama, dismastings, capsizes and record breaking crossings, so perhaps he thought a day out in an International 14 would be just a little too humdrum and predictable without spicing it up a little.
So leaving his drysuit zip open provided the added drama John had been craving. And I don't mean just a little open, I mean unzipped from shoulder to shoulder. When Mike and John capsized, John was wondering why he couldn't pull himself back in the boat afterwards. When he did eventually climb back on board, moving around was quite a challenge in itself. Once he set off across the boat for a tack or a gybe, there was no stopping him as the added momentum of 10 kilos of salt water sent Mr Blobby careering to the new gunnel, and beyond. But fair play to the Irishman, he completed both races that day, and with Mike came third overall out of 30 boats in some of the most testing conditions. It was a war of attrition, with quite a catalogue of breakage and retirements as the wind and waves took their toll. The fact that failing rudder stocks seemed to be the theme of the weekend suggests these T-foil rudders place enormous strains on the system, particularly when the boat is charging at huge speeds through steep waves.
Vertically challenged
Gear failure is something you just have to expect when you're pushing technology to the edges, so I can only wonder what these high-flying International Moths are discovering with their high-flying antics. The European Championships are not far away now, and I strongly recommend you make the time to get down to see these things racing around Portland Harbour. The dates are 18-23 July. King of the foilers, the Aussie Rohan Veal, must surely rank as the pre-event favourite, as he has been at it longer than anyone else. However, according to Rohan's website, some wicked Brits have been hatching a plan to protest the foiling Mothies over their self-levelling wand mechanism - a key part of the whole system without which the hydrofoils couldn't function.
"Word is that there are a few 'anti-foiler' Moth sailors that are proposing to try and ban hydrofoils from the Moth class," says Rohan. "Good luck to them, but I find it hard to accept the fact that these people choose to sail in a class where development is encouraged within the class rules and yet instead of embracing a change to make themselves go faster, they simply go in defence mode to try and protect their results and ranking. If you don't like foils, then don't use them! Our class numbers certainly haven't suffered recently because of this, but by taking away the only opportunity in a development class to do something like hydrofoiling, really does destroy any ambition for anyone else in the class to do anything as radical again in an effort to improve sailing efficiency and enjoyment." Apparently, the event Notice of Race has now been reworded to allow the foilers to proceed unimpeded, and so the flat-earthers have been headed off at the pass.
I don't suppose I'll be offending anyone, as any Moth sailor with their head buried so far in the sand won't be able to read this column. However, if you are reading this and I've just insulted you, I'm very sorry. But please, if you suffer from heights and don't relish the prospect of sailing at altitude, then sell up and sail any number of other classes out there. What about an RS300? Designed by the great Moth man himself, Clive Everest, it will give you all the thrills and spills of old-style Moth sailing at sea level. Clive will get a few more royalty cheques, and then he can spend your money on his latest invention, an RS300 that has been converted so that it can, oh no, would you believe it, go hydrofoiling! There really is no escaping progress.
