Mid-year meet

ISAF continued discussions about the future of Olympic sailing at their mid-year meeting

The ISAF Mid-Year meeting took place in Paris over the end of last week and this past weekend. Primarily this meeting is reserved for discussion of ongoing issues and those things that have not been resolved at the Annual Conference in November. This year much of the talk was about Olympic sailing and specifiaclly where the sport was heading in the near fututre.

The first big news is not entirely unexpected: the Equipment Committee reported there are indeed suitable designs available for a women’s Olympic high performance dinghy class to be introduced for the Games in 2012. Most were sure this would be the case, but this is the first time ISAF have officially confirmed the effective result of the Women’s High Performance Dinghy Observation Trials in Hyeres in late April ( see our report here).

Although no mention has been made of specific boats - again no great surprise - the manufacturers of the various classes must be relieved to be at least on the right track to Olympic selection.

It was noted, however, that conditions at the trials were not great and it is stated that: Before setting the specific requirements for the equipment, further evaluation (possibly in September/October in the UK) would be desirable in stronger winds and would also give opportunities to refine and optimise the equipment presented in Hyeres. It is believed that another trial will be held immediately before the Sail For Gold Regatta in September, clearly what the Equipment Committee are indicating here.



Although much of this does not hold any real revelation it is encouraging to see ISAF progressing, albeit slowly, down the track towards selecting a Women’s high performance dinghy for future Olympic competition.

On the subject of Olympic events there were some interesting talking points put forward in the ‘ISAF Olympic Events Strategy Working Party Report.’ Essentially this report sets out a potential vision of the future of Olympic sailing. Although this report is only a submission to the ISAF mid year meeting it does still give an interesting insight into one vision of the future.

Among the proposals in this rather long document, there is a comment that: Events at the Olympic Regatta should be able to be categorised without referenco class of boat – e.g. ‘Women’s one-person dinghy’. This is further implication of ISAF wanting to simplify Olympic competition for the general public. For example one can see how the Laser and Laser Radial fit as a men’s and women’s one person dinghy as they are both very similar. With the 49er as the men’s two person skiff (or similar name) it would seem the 29erXX or a 49er sport would become the most likely boat to fill the Women’s two person skiff position.

The report goes on to confirm the direction ISAF are intending to take in the future with regard to events at the Olympics, stating that: The Events at the Olympic Regatta should include both events chosen to maximise nation participation (type 1 events), and events chosen to maximise entertainment through fast and spectacular equipment or media-exciting format (type 2 events). ISAF should gradually transition its choice of Events and Equipment to reflect these two types of event. Although the use of the word ‘gradually’ does prevent any wild predictions being made about classes being added or removed from the Olympic line-up in the short term this statement does give some clues as to which boats are probably safe and which are in danger especially when we take a closer look at what the report sets out as the requirements for type 1 and type 2 events:


Type 1 Events

All ISAF member nations should be able to compete at the Olympics in Type 1 events,
subject to reaching a minimum standard. The cost of participating in these events should
be minimised, and equipment should be supplied for these events.
- Four Type 1 events would be identified; today they would be Windsurfer Men and
Women, and One Person Dinghy Men and Women.
- To exercise control over the total number of competitors, all countries would be entitled
to a total of one man and one woman entry in the Type 1 events. To enter more,
countries would need to qualify for all events they enter.
- To avoid “Olympic tourists”, ISAF would define a minimum standard for Type 1 events
in time for 2012 qualification. The [working party] recommends this is either based on
performance in the event at Regional Games, or at the 2011 Combined Classes World
Championships.

Type 2 Events

The Type 2 events should have a qualification system starting the year prior to the Games.
There should be a maximum of 16-20 entries per event, dependent on global spread of
event (and fewer for events with more than two sailors per entry).
- Currently the Type 2 events could be identified as Skiff Men (and Women if selected).
Match racing or team racing could be introduced as Type 2 events in the future.
- Qualification should primarily be based on results in the ISAF Combined Classes World
Championships, with additional qualification available through Olympic-year class world
championships, and other specific competition when more appropriate. Any
qualification event should be branded ‘Olympic Qualification Regatta’, and participating
nations would be counted as participating in Olympic qualification to properly reflect
sailing’s participation levels.
- All other current (non-Type 1) events should have the same qualification system and
maximum entry as Type 2 events.

Clearly from reading the above descriptions there are a number of classes that do not fit into type 1 or type 2 event structures. The Yngling for example is certainly not a type 1 event, costing a significant amount of money to buy and campaign,while being a large three person keelboat designed in 1967 it is obviously not going to fit into the type 2 category either. It is also interesting to note the mention of both team racing and match racing, opening up a whole new realm of speculation as to what events could be selected further down the line. Looking at the Yngling if it were a match racing class, perhaps it could well fit into the type 2 category.

Also included in this submission is a suggested shortlist of the events to be selected in November for the 2012 Olympic Games in London:

Men/Open

Windsurfer
1 person dinghy
1 person dinghy (heavy)
2 person dinghy
2 person skiff
Keelboat
Multihull

Women

Windsurfer
1 person dinghy
2 person dinghy
2 person skiff
Keelboat (fleet racing)
Keelboat (match racing)


So this gives some idea of the type of events ISAF are considering and specifically allows us to write off some previous speculation about the boats (or ‘events’ we can expect to see in future Olympics. The Bladerider Moth, for example, was considered by some to have an outside chance of selection but with no provision for a high performance one person dinghy and the one person dinghy slot almost definitely going to the Laser, the Bladerider does not look likely to have a slot. Having said this, the above events are still only suggested and the report does state that: ISAF could consider a wide range of new events (e.g 1 person skiff, a 1 person dinghy for light women, mixed dinghy or multihull, 2 boat team racing.) Equally we understand mixed classes are not an option in the future as the IOC for some reason wants to separate female and male competition and will not allow the addition of any new mixed or open classes (see our interview with ISAF President, Goran Petersson). It seems more than likely ISAF will be heading down the conservative route and picking ten events from the above tables.



Discussion at last weekend’s meeting also included more on the ‘World Cup Series’ concept for Olympic classes. In a paper submitted by the ISAF Secretariat in March 2007 ( here) a number of points were put forward, three of particular interest here. Firstly in addition to the six main events proposed to comprise the ‘World Cup Series’ (Sail Melbourne, Rolex Miami OCR, Princess Sofia Trophy, Semaine Olympique Francaise, Holland Regatta and Kiel Week) a grand final event was discussed with the submission stating that: ‘ In discussion with the Events Organisers, at this stage due to concerns over the expense of staging and scheduling within an already full calendar, there was no consensus to support a Grand Final event. However it was felt that the Grand Final concept could be introduced in future years, once the ISAF Sailing World Cup has become established.’

The paper also states that: [There will be] substantial prize money for the Grand Finale (e.g $20,000/ $10,000/ $5,000). This seems to us to be a problem as even the highest stated prize money of $20,000 is simply a drop in the ocean for most Olympic campaigns and will not go any way to encouraging participation in the series.

Also included in the paper is a breakdown of the points structure to be used by the World Cup Series. Essentially points will be given to the top 20 boats with first place receiving 20 points, second 19, third 18 etc with all events to count. This is clearly a system that will be easy to follow by the general public and removes much of the complication of the old Ranking Series (which will continue to run alongside the World Cup series for the time being.)

There were, of course a great many more things discussed but those listed are the ones we felt were of particular interest. To see the rest of the information about the ISAF Mid-Year Meeting click here, were you will find all the submissions, papers and supporting papers.