ISAF or the sailors?

It's hard to say who is sinning and who is sinned against says Peter Bentley

ISAF President, Paul Henderson (left) has sparked a huge debate with his comments on cheating in sailing. And a good thing too. While much of what Henderson says is correct, his comments only serve to demonstrate how remote ISAF has become from the top level of competition in the Olympic classes.

This is professional sport and it needs professional officials. It is ISAF who have failed the sailors and not the other way around.

At a lower level - club racing youth training and so on - regattas must be run to some degree based on trust, self policing and the simple basic honesty of competitors. It would be nice to think that the same could be said for the upper levels of the sport, but sadly it cannot.

Over the last ten years, top level Olympic classes sailing has become ever more professional in every sense of the word and the pressures to win are rising steadily. Henderson is right when he says that money is part of the problem, but only partially. The fierce competitive spirit of the top sailors would, one suspect, be enough even on its own to drive them to win at virtually all costs.

It's all very well for Henderson to hark on about how bad the sailors and coaches have become, but ISAF has to shoulder a fair share of the responsibility as well. For far too long the men in dim hotel meeting-rooms have buried their heads in the sand, thinking only about the Olympic regatta itself, virtually ignoring major championships and other highly significant events.

Make no mistake, Hyeres, Spa, Kiel and all the others major regattas are important too. At every one of these events sailors are competing for places, positions and ranking points. These results translate into squad selection, grants and ultimately money. Only the most naive would suggest that sailing could continue as a self-policing sport under such circumstances.

And yet, the standard of on the water judging has been patchy at best and technical rule enforcement all but nonexistent. To be sure, there are those who simply push and push at rule 42 knowing that they can 'get away with it' when the jury isn't looking. But the vast majority are honest competitors looking only to exploit the rule to the maximum while remaining legal.

It might sound simple, as Henderson says to "proper policing with tough but fair officials" but the reality is one of a very complex rule, taking place on a dynamic and three-dimensional playing surface. The standard of judging, though much better than it was, is inconsistent and there are simply not enough judges and jury boats to go round.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is but a healthy debate and ultimately a full review of the whole kinetics issue can only be a good thing. Henderson is certainly on the right track when he points out that the 49er and Tornado don't have a problem. Perhaps the futures selection of Olympic classes could offer some answer?

The selection of venues for events and in particular, the expected wind speed is another area to explore. While I'm not suggesting every regatta should be held in Tariffa or Hawaii, running big events at venues where the wind speed never rises above six knots is asking for trouble. Similarly, some refresher training for race officers would do a power of good. If the current 'get all the races in at all costs' mentality could be replaced with 'quality before quantity' in the minds of race officials, the problem would already be half solved.

Tomorrow Peter looks some other issues which Paul Henderson did not address and offers his solutions.