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

Olympics!

These proposed classes aren't necessarily the most expensive boats around or that could be around. But they represent the essence of performance sailing in the era in which we live. These classes could all be around as long as the Finn or Star and still represent Olympic sailing in spectacular fashion.
Every now and then major changes occur in sailing and this is one of those times. The fact that these boats use the utmost in current design and building technology does NOT necessarily mean they represent a new level of cost-because the very technology involved can be used to control costs(a la the Bladerider epoxy/glass/carbon Moth).
Anyone who has actually ever sailed on foils knows that it is an extraordinary way to sail, many times described as "the most fun I've ever had". Foils are being used now more and more of the time in new designs and are becoming intrinsic to performance sailing design from dinghies, sailboards, kiteboards, multihulls and ,yes, even in keelboats where the Open 60 V3 just won the BWR using curved lifting foils.
It's time for the Olympics to join the new era that is dawning in performance sailing.

"Faster, higher, longer"

"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"
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Olympics! as it is....

From Jim Champ in Scuttlebutt Europe:

Seeing all the vitriol and, frankly, very inacurate statements that are being made about the ISAF Olympic selections I did a little research and discovered that the choices made were entirely predictable if you had done a little research beforehand.

ISAF has something like 120 member nations, and If I read all the docs correctly 39 of them made submissions to the mid year meeting on the subject of Olympic classes. 9 from Asia, 22 from Europe, 5 from North America, and 2 from South America.

Of those countries
37 suggested some sort of board, both exceptions being in the NA region
39 suggested M & F Lasers
32 suggested M & F 470s, and just 4 mixed 470s
34 suggested the Finn
35 suggested a mixed multihull
37 suggested the 49er
32 suggested the women's skiff

The next biggest categories were 10 each for a male keelboat and a female keelboat.

Countries that didn't suggest M & F 470s were 4 in Europe, all large, and 2 in North America, 1 in South America. Other than in the carribean, the smaller countries all supported two 470s.

Whatever else may be said there seems little doubt that Council came up with a decision that reflected what its members were telling it. Sounds like democracy to me...

Personally I'd have dropped the womens skiff in favour of a match racing with mixed crews in the Elliots, but that was an option not one country suggested.

"Just because it is doesn't mean it should be" Mrs. Boss

 

Match racing: J80
Duo dinghy: 49er
Single dinghy: Laser/laser radial for women
Catamaran: HC Tiger

They are all popular, accessible to clubs, modern and fun to watch. Why should it be complicated?

 

According to Wikipedia, the first modern Olympics was held in 1896.

Notice most of the sailboat classes used in these games date from the turn of the 20th century, or at least in that generation.

Curious.

 

470 designed 1963 - earliest vaguely similar equipment (Int 14) created about 1927.
Laser designed 1970 - earliest vaguely similar equipment created about 1932.
Star designed 1911, heavily updated - earliest similar class about 1885.
Elliott 6m designed around 2005
RSX designed around 2002 - earliest vaguely similar equipment about 1960.
49er designed c 1994-5.

Olympic rowing shell - first vaguely similar equipment about 1850s??, no dramatic design change since the sliding seat was created about 1870???? Heavily restricted design.

Olympic kayak - pre-historic basic design? Beam, length etc restricted. Olympic class slower than (banned) foilers and HP vessels.

Olympic bicycle - basic double-diamond design dates to about 1870???, some 33% slower than the fastest possible design of human powered bicycle. Heavily restricted in weight, dimensions, etc.

Discus, javelin, shooting and archery events - basic design of equipment very old and very restricted.
Running, swimming, etc - basic design of "equipment" even older and technology like blades and streamlined suits banned.

Therefore you can make a strong case that sailing has NEWER and more advanced equipment than other sports.

Note also that evidence such as national title entry figures show that there is NO movement towards faster dinghies and therefore it cannot really be claimed that we should have skiff etc types because they are the future of the sport.

 

Jet-packs have been available for a few decades
but there's no Olympic event for them.
C'mon, IOC, wise up!

 

I think you mean double triangle (top tube+seat tube+down tube, seat tube+seat stay+chainstay).

From an engineering point-of-view, triangles are very stable. Diamond-type shapes (parallelograms, rhomboids, trapezoids, etc) are not.

 

I tend to agree. But there's another element that's different from the classic greek games. We're all colored by humanist views which probably existed far less back then.

 

I think you might find that sailboats did exist before bicycles, and that the bicycles you'll see in London will probably have been designed in the last couple of years, no more.
You are clearly confusing the invention and the design.
But you are right by saying that performance has little to do with the choice of equipment. I think it is really important that they choose equipement that is accessible to sailing schools and the general public. This is the first criteria I would consider!

 

Please re-read the post. I'm well aware that sailboats existed before bicycles! I was certainly not confusing invention and design in any way, neither in bikes or boats.

However, you won't find anything too similar to a 470 back in 900BC, and there wasn't many trapezes and spinnakers in use in the Dark Ages. The age of the activity is different from the age of the equipment in the Games.

I am aware of the era in which each of those craft were designed, and I chose the date at which the earliest craft of a similar concept was created. For example, I chose 1927 as the date of the earliest boat of similar concept to the 470 because I think you can say that Uffa Fox's International 14 "Avenger" of that date was the first boat that was close to a 470 in design and conception. Of course, this is subjective and I assume Andre Cornu would have said that the boat's concept came from the late '50s, when trapezes became more common.

I am not confusing the year of the invention of bicycles with the year of their design. The point is that the standard UCI racing bike's basic design was fundamentally set in 1931, the year that the faster recumbent designs were banned. Further restrictions have been introduced since. I'm aware of these since I have to take care to ensure that things like my bicycle seats do not infringe the restrictive UCI rules.

Actually, I'm not sure many people will be using two-year old bike designs in the 2012 Games; designs seem to change each year but the point is that the changes are restricted (and becoming more restricted) in bicycle design.

Arguably, road bikes at the Games, which are developments of a basic design frozen around a 1931 state-of-the-art, are therefore older in terms of basic design than the Olympic dinghies - the bikes are roughly similar in basic design age to the British Merlin Rocket, a development class built to general parameters similar to those of a state of the art dinghy of 1931. Track bikes are of course extremely closely restricted in design and equipment; in some ways perhaps more restricted than the Laser is.




http://www.thedailysail.com/files/migration/images/_bottoml_1_101.jpg

The point is that the Olympic sailing equipment is NOT generally older, in concept and often in detail design, to the equipment used in comparable Olympic sports.

I agree that we should have classes that are accessible, although having some high performance classes as well could also be important.

 

This thread opened on the subject of Olympic class selection. The posts seem now to be divided into three facets:

1. Should sailing be in the Olympics;

2. Should the classes used in the Olympics be the latest high performance… or classes with (shall we say) a certain history; and

3. How to bring people into sailing.

I would suggest that among sailors, the first question should be turned around and asked as “Does sailing benefit from inclusion in the Olympics?” In a society where even individual validity appears to be measured by celebrity or proximity thereto, there are advantages, access to politicians (who bring money to the elite in return for medals and their own access), etc. and disadvantages; entering the same competition for attention as the likes of Ian Thorpe, is unlikely to prove rewarding.

We need to recognise that sailing, far more than most Olympic sports, promotes competitive participation at any age, rather than a “dignified” progression to “senior” comps and ultimately the pathetic role of “fan.” Sailing is both a sport and a way of being. Which brings one to the third question; bringing people into sailing! This is actively impeded by the false perception that sailing is extremely expensive. It is only expensive, if you want to participate in elite competition, or big boats. A quick search of Australian web sites suggests the price differential between two very similar classes is 20% (Spiral $7,380 Laser $9,200) in favour of the lower profile boat: a 20% difference. The International Optimist, a mere box, with a couple of curves and four buoyancy bags costs $3000 and can only be sailed by kids, one of Spencer’s Firebugs costs the same, and can be sailed competitively by anyone up to 90kg at least. Yes, you build it yourself, but there is a lot to be learned in the process, and what you build, you can repair… Unlike the Opti, the ‘Bug can be righted and sailed to a competitive finish, while the Opti is still full of water waiting for a tow home with a discouraged and scared kid aboard.

The question of Olympic classes needs to reflect the media’s fickle attention span, sailing will never get much time, it’s too expensive, so what coverage it gets needs to be spectacular, to non-sailors and have enough history, read comparable performances from earlier events, to provide the commentators, mostly ignorant of sailing matters, with a narrative. This suggests that perhaps a maximum of two classes should be changed in each Olympic year. This should provide a balance between the technically brilliant latest generation… and the historically significant.

But if the Olympics are meant to be a competition between nations, the Olympic medals for sailing have been divided among a small group of privileged nations. Roll on the day when an Eritrean or Zambian wins a sailing medal. Then we will have a truly democratic sport.

 

That was probably me with the Moth. I get questions from interested juniors all the time. One of my favorite photos is of a crowd of ten or so kids on the dinghy ramp at ABYC checking out my Moth. So they are interested. But few have parents who will buy them one. And there isn't much of a youth scene in the class, so perhaps the parents are correct in keeping the youth in the sailing school setting. The kids know they aren't getting a Moth any time soon, so it is more of a curiosity for most of them. A few of the older ones really want to know how it works, and I spend lots of time talking to them. But fundamentally it is more like seeing a Ferrari drive into the club for most - cool but unrealistic.

The ones who really dig it will figure out a way to get one when they are a bit older. I just try to nurture the interested, and support the idea that owning a Moth isn't unrealistic if you really want one.

 

Point of contention: there are lots of nice vids on YouTube of Mango and other streamlined recumbent bikes being used as commuter vehicles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cq8LY99RXFE

 

But the Mango isn't a full-on racing streamliner, with a big turning circle, fully-enclosed cockpit to cook the rider on hot days*, and a pit crew needed to drop and secure the upper half of the body a lot of the time, and then to hold the bike up before and after the run.

As far as I can see, the streamliners are also much more difficult to transport; too big to fit into a wagon, unwieldy on the roof, too long to go on a rack across the back. In contrast, a conventional bike or two is an easy fit.

I do note that the vid is shot in a very flat area (where the extra weight is no issue) and the facilities are so good that the authorities even moved a traffic light button so that a 'bent rider could use it. Hardly the typical situation in most places! You couldn't actually use even a Mango on my daily commute, for example - with an 8 metre turning circle it would get jammed half-way. Nor would it be exactly easy to carry up the steps to the lift or fit into the office.

In contrast, a full-on UCI competitive road or time trial bike is quite a handy commuter. You could ride straight from home to the office and then to the racecourse. They have their issues, of course, but since conventional cycles are popular worldwide and the #1 competition is allegedly the world's biggest annual sporting event, they seem to be a perfect advertisement for sporting equipment that is slower but more practical.

As a bizarre coincidence, just as I wrote this the live commentary for the Vuelta de Aspana just mentioned the Dutch pro who got into racing when he was riding to school on his town bike and found that he could hang in with a racing group. What a perfect example of the opportunities that can be created when a sport has accessible gear! It's a bit like the way that Elvstrom started to race by tailing onto racers in the first dinghy he sailed - something that's only possible when gear that beginners can use is also raceable.

None of this, to repeat, is attacking high performance stuff or saying that it's not great and doesn't have a major place in the sport. But the basis of every major participant sport seems to be gear and/or rules that are designed to be accessible to the general public, rather than about the highest performance.

It seems odd in such a case that so many people criticise sailing for showcasing accessible gear in the sport when just about every other sport does the same.


* racing cyclists can fixate on having the greatest number of vents in a helmet, being shut inside an enclosed box is apparently another dimension.

 

Excellent post!