Exactly - this is the bottomline. Sailing for reasons other than fun make people fight for real, protest for real, cheat for real and do many other things that most of us would rather live without.

Out of curiosity: in 38 years sailing, the boats I sailed were protested ONCE.

That protest is a digression, but worth your time, I guess.

It was the first time ever we won in elapsed time and corrected time. But the last boat crossing the line protested all others, claiming that we rounded the wrong buoy. What used to be the "north" buoy now was the "south" buoy and there was a new "north" buoy further north.

Upon checking the "advice to sailors" (navy's official publication to mariners), all skippers agreed that he was right: only his boat sailed the 2 mile longer course to the new buoy. The others just followed us... But there was no "judgement": After the facts were known, the "teacher" withdrew his protest.

- Why? - I asked him.

He told me that his only goal was to teach everybody the buoy's new location and that all sailors MUST read both the sailing instructions AND "advices to sailors". This was more important than "winning" trophys and medals through a protest.

Quite different from the Olympics, isn't it?