I was mighty impressed to see Steve Tylecote and Toby Lewis win the Endeavour Trophy a few weeks ago. I know Steve from way back, from Topper sailing and team racing at university. He has always been a talented sailor, but with a young family to look after, I can't imagine he gets as much on the water as the likes of Roger Gilbert/James Stewart and Nick Craig/Steve Dunn, who I thought would be fighting it out for overall honours. As it was, they finished 2nd and 3rd respectively

All the more impressive is that Firefly class representatives Steve and Toby earned most of their lead on the Saturday, when it was blowing pretty hard on the River Crouch. A windy regatta I would have expected to play into the hands of Nick Craig, bringing both his fitness, experience and confidence from having won the past three Endeavours into play. As it was, the Fireflyers built a lead that gave them enough of a cushion when the wind went light the next day.

Aided by sponsors like Holt, Hyde, Selden, Henri Lloyd, English Braids, Marlin Ribs and Topper in particular, with the loan of their Xenon doublehanders, the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club has put the Endeavour Trophy right back on the map as a first-class event. By the account of one national champion competing there, however, next year's event could also do with some on-the-water umpiring. Perhaps taking advantage of the Xenon's sturdy construction, the rule observance of some sailors left an awful lot to be desired.

Collisions between boats and touching rounding marks went unheeded much of the time, to the frustration of this particular national champion that I was talking to. "Is this what you need to do to win?" he asked me, when I had to remind him that it was he, and not I, who was the national champion, and that perhaps he should know better than anyone that you can win without resorting to playing dirty.

Getting off the start line in clear air was a critical skill, as there were few passing lanes in such a tightly contested fleet. Some teams were understandably eager to make a perfect start, with the International 14 representatives Rob and Pete Greenhalgh notching up two OCSs on the Saturday and failing to get one of those overturned in the protest room. The brothers drove home for an early bath, which didn't go down too well with organisers or fellow competitors, who felt they should have stuck it out to the end, even if winning was out of the question.

As well as the Firefly sailors' victory, I was very impressed with the Vortex representatives, Keith Escritt and Elaine Marsh, finishing fourth overall, just a point behind Nick Craig and Steve Dunn. The Vortex fleet wouldn't crop up in most people's top 10 list of most competitive national classes, but fair play to Keith and Elaine. You did yourselves and your class proud.

Mixed Fleets

If you've come across my blog, SailJuiceBlog.com, you'll have noticed I've been running a survey to see what folks think about the events that should be included in the Olympic Regatta for Weymouth 2012, or more importantly which event should be excluded. I'll bring you more on the survey results next time, although by then it will be somewhat academic because ISAF will have made its decision as to which events will stay and which will go.

For the time being, I want to address an issue which has been a popular point of discussion on my blog, which is of Mixed Fleets, ie compulsory male/female teams. After all, other sports have mixed events such as tennis and badminton. Remember Great Britain's Olympic silver medallists in the badminton at Athens? Gail Emms and Nathan Robinson almost became household names with all the coverage they attracted in the UK media. The same is probably true of other mixed teams who bring home medals for their nations. It's a great story, seeing man and woman battle side by side in competitive sport.

The reason why so many of my survey respondents talk about mixed fleets is that, aside from the media interest it might cause, it solves the riddle of how to squeeze all the many different types of sailing event into too few Olympic events. Rather than debating how we have to have either a keelboat or a catamaran, but not both, we could have both if we made the majority of events compulsory mixed. But not the singlehanders though. There just aren't enough transsexuals or hermaphrodites around.
 
Of course there are Open classes at the moment, but I can think of only one woman competing at the top level in any of these fleets, and that's Carolijn Brouwer who finished runner-up in the Tornado World Championships this year. Open is an irrelevance, Mixed would be a revelation.

So why not? A bit too racy for staid old ISAF perhaps? Apparently not. There is quite a strong feeling within ISAF that it would indeed be a good idea, but the problem lies with the International Olympic Committee which seems to be against the idea of men and women competing in the same event. Why that should be, is beyond me. Here is ISAF trying to come up with ways of hitting the 35% female participation target laid down by the IOC when you could achieve 50% participation in one simple move. Mixed sailing would kill two birds with one stone - achieving higher female participation and increased media interest.

But here's the rub. The IOC states that an Olympic event should be representative of the wider sport, and because there is no such as compulsory mixed racing in the wider world of sailing, it can't take place in the Olympic Regatta. What, you might ask, about popular hiking classes in this country such as the Enterprise, National 12 and RS200, not to mention the high-performance success of the RS800? The reason why these classes are popular is due in large part to the fact that they can be sailed competitively by boy/girl teams, at little or no disadvantage to all-male teams. So there is plenty of precedent for there to be mixed sailing in the Games. What a great advertisement for the sport that would be.

Of course, this is all pie in the sky while the IOC continues to take this draconian view over gender-segregated competition, but one insider at ISAF believes it is time ISAF bit the bullet and went banging on IOC's door, and became a bit more assertive about the idea.

Meanwhile, is any sailing class out there brave enough to turn itself into a compulsory mixed fleet? Not only would it give ISAF the ammunition to point to that fleet and show the IOC that compulsory mixed sailing does indeed exist in the wider world, but what a great marketing ploy it would be. The hiking doublehander for two medium-sized people has always been one of the most competitive and hard-fought markets, and there are lots of boats sitting in direct competition to each other. Not all of them are succeeding. Maybe one should strike out alone, and position itself exclusively as a compulsory boy/girl class. It would be a courageous move, but it would be groundbreaking and it could set the class in a league of its own.

There is a parallel in the big boat world. Ten years ago, a wealthy owner who wanted to compete in the Admiral's Cup or other grand prix events was allowed to stand on his own boat only if the professional skipper was prepared to put up with him there. If he was really lucky, he might get to do something thrilling like pulling on the runners - a job, by the way, that you can only screw up. No one ever tells you what a great job you did on runners today. The only time anyone ever remembers who was on runners is when the rig just fell down!

What better way to enthuse an owner - the rarest and most important person in yachting - than leave him ashore or give him the most thankless job on the boat. Enter the Farr 40, with its owner/driver rule, and it was an overnight sensation. Owners getting to steer the boats that they have paid for! Not exactly rocket science, is it? But then, the best ideas are always the ones that were staring you in the face. Many other keelboat classes have since copied the Farr 40's pioneering move, but the Farr 40 remains one of the most successful and competitive classes today.

Would creating a compulsory mixed dinghy class achieve the same level of success? Who knows? But I'd love to see someone give it a go.