2016 Olympics: Sailors of the World - Hang your heads and weep! (Sail-World)

Discussion in 'Sailboats' started by Doug Lord, May 6, 2011.

  1. markdrela
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    markdrela Senior Member

    Sorry, but it isn't so simple. Sport is not about technology, but about the human machine. Any associated equipment technology is just a means to that end. For some sports there simply has to be some limitation on the technology, or the event becomes ridiculous.

    Take bike racing for example. Without any restrictions everyone would be forced into a fully-enclosed streamliner bike. Each of the wide variety of cycling events -- match sprint, kilo, team pursuit, road race, criterium -- would become an individual time trial of rolling torpedoes. This would pretty much kill off competitive cycling IMO.

    I don't see the problem with limiting technology and hence performance by 10% or whatever if this results in a very large reduction in price, availability, robustness, attraction to newcomers, or attractiveness to spectators. And if the resulting piece of "restricted" equipment is also great for weekend warriors, so much the better to expand its popularity. A legal competition road bike can be used for racing, and also for general fitness or commuting. But a "high-tech" fully-streamlined racing bike would be useless for almost anything else. Why not make this consideration when making rules for small or medium-size racing sailboats?
     
  2. Paul B

    Paul B Previous Member

    I didn't say you did. There have been a couple of others in this thread who have made silly comments about athleticism/abilities of certain sailors.

    I sail out of a club that is probably the biggest dinghy racing center on the West Coast of the USA. If not the biggest, in the top 3.

    This club also has one of the best Junior programs anywhere, having produced many Olympic Medalists, World Champions, etc. The current Sabot National Champion is out of the Junior program.

    We don't have any 49ers sailing out of the club. There doesn't seem to be any interest. No 29er sailing either.

    Last week I was at the club and one of our members was setting up and launching his foiling Moth. Not one of the many Juniors who were running around playing grab *** showed any interest in the Moth.
     
  3. ancient kayaker
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    ancient kayaker aka Terry Haines

    I'm not sure what technology-based car racing has to do with the athletics-based Olympics. If the Olympics committees are against "tech" and pro athletics, this should not be a surprise.

    If absolute performance is taken as the only criteria there will be very few countries that are able to compete effectively. Technology has dominated the Olympics in almost every category. Unless you have millionaire backing or massive state sponsorship in any event you can just forget about showing up even in the unlikely event you can qualify.

    However, most viewers and spectators don't give a damn if the result is not as fast/high/whatever as the World record, an Olympic record still counts for more.

    Now back to basics. The original stadium sports of the classical Olympics translate very well into modern arrangements for the majority of people following a sport, principally TV with the web catching up fast. Even if you manage to get to the location and can afford the ticket, those are the events that attract the most spectators as well as the most viewers. Sailing is a crappy thing to watch on TV, a bunch of folk in weird craft yelling ‘starbrd yer ‘elm” and cutting each other off at the buoys - if you’re lucky - and if you’re not a bunch of tiny spots on the horizon doing something or other with only the commentator’s voice keeping you connected. About half the events including sailing should be dumped, few people will notice or care and the cost and negative social impact will go way down.
     
  4. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    Mark, I totally agree with you - I was making the same point, and often using the same examples! :)

    Bikes are a great example. I race bikes, boards and boats and as you say, the restrictions on bike design mean that a weekend warrior's bike, or even an Olympian's bike, can also be used for a convenient commuter. They are also much easier to prepare and use in competition mode than high-performance sailing craft - something that's really been driven home to me when I've done regional time trials in the morning and driven straight to regional windsurfer races. A performance bike is not much harder to use than a supermarket BSO, whereas high-performance sailing craft are in a completely different bracket in terms of complexity and difficulty. You can arrive at the bike course with a top-line TT bike and it goes together easily and in seconds. Arrive at the windsurfer course with a top-line raceboard and you're faced with a much more complex object where even rigging up can involve quite high physical loads.

    Actually, it's very interesting to see that someone with your background is an advocate for limitations on performance.
     
  5. markdrela
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    markdrela Senior Member

    I'm not advocating explicit limitations on performance. For example, mandating a drogue chute of X square feet on a streamliner bike -- that would be just plain stupid in every way.

    I'm advocating some limitations on cost, impracticality, unavailability, and anything else that would be a significant barrier to entry, participation, and spectator appeal. There has to be some hit in absolute performance (otherwise the limitations would be unnecessary), but that's unavoidable. Obviously it's a difficult tradeoff that requires VERY careful rulemaking to get the intended effect, and it's not a job for non-technical bureaucrats. The rulemakers have to deeply understand the technical and economic tradeoffs involved.

    One bike example of how not to do it is the allowed-technology progression in the Hour Records of Moser, Obree, Boardman, etc. ... and then sheepishly back to Merckx where it should have stayed. This wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for some flag-waving bureaucrats inside the UCI which allowed Moser's disk wheels, which started the bike aero technology craze rolling downhill and eventually off the cliff.
     
  6. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    "I'm not advocating explicit limitations on performance. For example, mandating a drogue chute of X square feet on a streamliner bike -- that would be just plain stupid in every way."

    Understood; I didn't mean to imply that you were advocating explicit limitations. Totally agree about the issues with rulemaking - the UCI's rules banning wheel covers but permitting more expensive disc wheels seems to be a classic example of a rule worse than anything in sailing!
     
  7. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    Speaking of which, the BMX scramble is far more interesting to watch than track racing and technology is less important. :)
     
  8. CT 249
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    CT 249 Senior Member

    You may well be right, Leo, but it could also be extremely significant that the sports that supposedly make better watching often get lower ratings.

    Here's a list of Olympic sports from the Beijing Games, in order of popularity. The first number is the hours broadcast, the second the average number of viewers each minute in millions. What they seem to show is that spectacular sports DON'T really seem to attract more viewers.

    Road cycling got vastly more viewers than BMX or MTB, for example. Track cycling got fewer hours, but many more watchers per hour, than the other cycle disciplines. Supposedly sexy beach volleyball flopped on both counts compared to "boring old" volleyball. White-water kayaking got significantly less viewers than the "supposedly boring" flat water kayak and canoe events or flat-water rowing. And swimming, perhaps close to the slowest of all sports, rated its socks off. Sailing, including the crash and burn 49er final, did very poorly as it has been since the skiff, spinnaker cat and board were introduced.

    Since, for example, flat-water kayaking outrates whitewater and road cycling outrates BMX and MTB, it seems that the visual thrills and spills are not a big factor when it comes to getting viewers, so dumping keelboats in favour of supposedly more telegenic boats may do nothing for ratings.

    Athletics 206 hours broadcast / 65 mill spectators each minute
    Road cycling 121 / 23.8
    Swimming 120 hours broadcast/ 58.8 mill spectators each minute
    Artistic gymnastics 106 / 53.3
    Volleyball 103 / 38.5
    Triathlon 68 /. 19.4
    Beach volleyball 59 / 23.6
    Rhythmic gymnastics 49/ 30.4
    MTB 45 / 16.4
    BMX 44 / 23.2
    Table tennis 41 / 40.8
    Track cycling 37/32.8
    Diving 31 / 43.5
    Rowing 24 / 40.8
    Water polo 24 / 17.4
    Sprint (flat water) kayak/canoe – 24 / 32.4
    Slalom (whitewater) canoe – 22 / 22.3
    Sync Swimming 17 / 25.7
    Shooting 12 /28
    Trampolining 11 / 41.6
    Sailing – 11 / 24.5
     
  9. CutOnce

    CutOnce Previous Member

    At this point I feel it necessary to step in and carefully remove the bloody baseball bat from CT 249's now shaking hands. This "extreme, exciting sports are what people want" hypothesis is very dead, and further beatings will not make it more so.

    Given this failed thesis, perhaps someone should introduce Tactical Bingo as a demonstration sport. Ratings will be astronomical, advertisers will be ecstatic. This fits well with the arrival of Baby Boomers at 65 years old this year. The demographics are perfect!

    I can't say I disagree with the conclusions drawn from the data set presented. Chris 249 is right on the money statistically.

    I can say that I have problems with the analysis however. Sport is an activity done by the participants for the participants - not viewers, advertisers, networks or dare I say national pride. Being the best at an athletically challenging sport transcends borders, and theoretically should place individual people in competition for supremacy ignoring borders, language, money and commercial potential. Who cares what boat they are in if we actually can find out who is the best sailor?

    I also think the Olympic movement suffered a mortal blow when it let the mass entertainment industry (professional sporting participants) in the door. Most sporting "heroes" are media-savvy entertainers producing a product designed to keep us in the chairs, spending money and not participating. I personally think "professional athlete" is an oxymoronic phrase. As soon as someone becomes "professional", their allegiance is to revenue, not the sport.

    The Olympics have turned sporting competition into a nation-state competition, and revenue generator - not a venue where people compete to see who is best without consideration for these other factors. I absolutely hate medal counts and charts rating countries by Gold, Silver & Bronze. I'd much rather see excellence rewarded regardless of country. Who cares what political system produced the best athlete?

    The original Olympic games were about competitors, not countries. Sports were about individual athletic challenge, not popularity. The current Olympics are but a shameful shadow of the intent of the original games. Why should TV viewing hours and viewer counts have any sway over choosing boats for sailing events?

    --
    CutOnce
     
  10. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    So what :)
    Who cares what they did over 2000 years ago.
     
  11. CutOnce

    CutOnce Previous Member

    Good questions. My answers are obviously different than yours.

    I guess very few do care, as the original concept has been lost in a sea of flags, endless mindless chanted repetition of U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! (little better than Vuvuzelas) and pop icons like Vanessa Amorosi (or choose your local flavor). Good TV, perhaps great entertainment, but lacking as the ultimate athletic contest in many sports like sailing.

    If you like your sports, entertainment and lounge chair time neatly bundled between 7:00PM and 10:00PM, cold beers just a fridge away and your content packaged like a junk food chocolate bar, then the current Olympic Games are a wild success. Each successive hosting city/country goes further over the top each time.

    Spectating has become an expensive and elite proposition. In the winning city's effort to recover all possible costs/profits from hosting the games, there is little chance the average club sailor could attend a series like they can lurk at a class World Championship. My wife's cousin rented out her house for the Vancouver Winter games for two weeks and the money paid for a year's mortgage - and she was charging less than neighbors. If I see Canada packaged and sold as red coated Mounties, cute beavers, Inuit natives and maple syrup one more time I'll scream.

    I guess it is all up to people's preferences on what they envision as sports.

    Cheers,

    --
    CutOnce
     
  12. gggGuest
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    gggGuest ...

    Well, those who won't learn from history are condemned to repeat it. But 2,000 years ago the Olympics were mainly about individuals getting very rich and gaining lots of status and public recognition, so maybe things have changed less than you think...
     
  13. Doug Lord
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    Doug Lord Flight Ready

    Olympic Classes

    Modern Olympic Classes suggestions: (actual 2016 classes here: http://www.sailing.org/35891.php )

    --Mens and Womens sailboard and kiteboards possibly equipped with lifting foils
    -
    --Mens One Person Dinghy-Moth*
    -
    --Womens One Person Dinghy-Moth radial*
    -
    --Mens 2nd One Person Dinghy-Moth XL**
    -
    --Mens "Skiff"--two person foiler and/or "foil assist" ***
    -
    -- Womens "Skiff"--two person foiler and/or foil assist***
    -
    --Mens Two Person Dinghy-"foil assist" ****
    -
    --Womens Two Person Dinghy-"foil assist" ****
    -
    --Mixed Two Person Multihull-"foil assist" *****
    ============
    * Moth-like one design built from glass and carbon-not 100% carbon-similar to Bladerider glass boat that was several thousand dollars cheaper than a "normal" Moth.
    -
    ** Moth-like one design set up for the same weight range as a Finn. Same building material as *.
    -
    *** Bethwaites design-successor to the 49er. Two rigs and foil sets: one for men, one for women.
    -
    **** Dinghy using curved lifting foils similar to the Tantra II presented here: http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/sailboats/dinghy-design-open-60-influence-36401-10.html post 137
    -
    ***** 18' wing rigged cat with curved lifting foils similar to Mike Drumonds
    AC 18. http://www.boatdesign.net/forums/multihulls/ac-18-new-olympic-cat-37927.html

    Pictures,L to R : Rush Randle jumping foilboard, AET, French foilboard, Moth, R Class "skiff foiler", RS600FF trapeze "skiff foiler", kite foilboard(notice smile).

    click on image for a better view:
     

    Attached Files:

  14. CutOnce

    CutOnce Previous Member

    Props to Doug

    +1 for consistency and sticking to your guns. No one can accuse you of compromising your vision of the future. It isn't a vision shared by everyone (me included), but it is all Doug.

    --
    CutOnce
     

  15. Leo Lazauskas
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    Leo Lazauskas Senior Member

    What is this "original concept" that you alone know?
    I think you are just making up stuff. :)

    All the best,
    Leo.
     
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