Summary

The ISAF Conference in May brought our campaign closer to its objective of securing appropriate representation for multihulls at the highest level of sport. It now seems highly likely that, if IOC grants sailing an 11th medal, it will be for an Open Multihull Event, raced in Tornados, as in China, and that the chances of a favourable IOC decision are good, but that may not be known till October.

That progress is thanks to the support of you, 4000+ multihull sailors and 2000 others who signed our e-petition. This has been invaluable in demonstrating the widespread global support for our sailing discipline. For details on that and related developments, please read on….

Multihull Commission

It was not necessary for the new Commission, chaired by Paul Pascoe (Also President of the International Multihull Council, www.multihullcouncil.org, to meet as it had already delivered its recommendation to the Executive in an unprecedented open and well-attended meeting at the previous November Conference. That provided the first opportunity for inter-class discussion since ISAF had disbanded its previous Multihull Committee several years earlier. It recommended that in principle the multihull discipline ought to be in the Olympics and in practice that there were two well-suited multihull classes, namely Tornado and Hobie Tiger (F18).

Olympic Commission

This new Commission met for the first time. Proposed by Phil Jones of Yachting Australia in probably the most exhaustive submission ever made to ISAF, its purpose is to establish a long-term Olympic strategy for sailing. It too is an indirect result of our campaign, in that it exposed the inner workings of ISAF to public scrutiny, revealing that the existing selection of Events was driven not on any objective basis but by the haphazard interaction of national self-interest within ISAF’s governing body, the Council.

The good news is that if multihulls lost out in a political battle, the multihull cause should be much better represented in a strategic appraisal, especially as that Commission is chaired by the official spokesman of a keen multihull sailing country, namely Phil Jones – and one whose Olympic Committee has reportedly even made its own direct submission to IOC.

While it met in camera, it is clear that key items for its consideration must include
1. How to change from a system of defining Events around established classes to representing distinct sailing disciplines.

2. Why should Multihulls be the only discipline to have a single Open Event, when all others have separate Men and/or Women Events

3. Should the class used in an Event be the most elite representative (with the least political support) or the most popular (with the most political support).

4. What should be the proportions of Events that maximise nation participation and spectator appeal

The bad news is that Commissions are the least powerful entities within ISAF, reporting directly and secretly to the Executive and summoned only when it needs their input. Nevertheless this is another improvement.

Events Committee

In his closing statement at the previous Conference, Goran Petersson had said that ISAF would need to make a contingent decision on what to do if IOC granted sailing an 11th medal, because of the shortage of time for athletes to prepare for the Olympic Regatta at Weymouth in 2012.

This committee therefore decided that submissions for multihulls from the ITA, Hobie Tiger classes as well as several countries were urgent and so qualified for debate now. The Committee voted contingently to recommend that the event be multihull and that the class be the Tornado, as raced in China, on the basis that it was too late in the Olympic cycle to experiment this time round.

Council

Opening discussion about the 11th medal, Goran Petersson revealed that 15 sports had asked IOC for 32 medals, requiring 8% more athletes, but added that sailing had a good chance because, unlike many, it was only asking for replacement of something lost, rather than additional new medals, and that, as he had just been given a key position in organising venues for all sports at future Games, he was now well placed to network within the IOC structure.

Given that IOC had not yet officially discussed this issue, Council noted the similar recommendations of Events and Equipment Committees in favour of the Tornado and voted to delegate authority to the Executive, as soon an edict emerges from the IOC.

Analysis

The entire multihull fiasco arose in the first place because of an IOC edict limiting the total number of competitors and medals per sport due to the escalating cost of the Games, which reached a new record in China. IOC is now experiencing the backlash as its entire membership feels the consequences of capacity constraints for the first time in its history. This has generated widespread unhappiness that individual athletes in some sports should be able to win as many eight medals, when some entire sports are limited to so few in total.

Rather than an unseemly political battle between national interests, as at ISAF, it seems that IOC prefers to operate by establishing strategic principles, which it does by its Olympic Programme Commission making reports to the Executive, much like ISAF’s new Olympic Commission.

As the 15 sports asking for additional medals represent more than half the 26 sports comprising the Summer Games, it will be very difficult for the IOC to dismiss the entire issue, so it will probably have to refine its cost-control edict.

That could mean the re-instatement of all cancelled medals, but retention of the limit on total numbers of athletes for each sport, on the basis that it is the latter that mainly drives up costs per sport. That would be good for multihull sailing.

If the refined criteria were to be more specific, the IOC might also look favourably on adding events that a) have been in the Games before b) represent a sector of the sport not currently in the programme c) require no new facilities d) request no increase in the number of competitors e) have widespread global participation.


That is the good news, or rather speculation. The bad news is that we will have to be patient. This issue is on the IOC agenda, but the new Youth Olympics have delayed the Executive’s to-do list, so it was not discussed at its March meeting, will not be discussed in June, may be politically inconvenient at its August AGM and so might only be decided at the October meeting of the new Executive, when Jacques Rogge may have been re-elected as its President.

Non-Olympic Events

Outside the Olympic arena, the Tornado class is suffering from the lack of official sponsorship but elsewhere our branch of the sport remains strong. The Asian Championships and Asian Games have now agreed that the multihull they use will be the Hobie 16 in China, 2010. The Asian Games is the second largest sports event in the world after the Olympic Games, comprising half the world's population. In July the Hobie 16 will be used in the ISAF Youth Worlds in Brazil. The imminent F18 Worlds has attracted a record entry of 180 teams from 15 countries making it among the largest ever dinghy events – almost all at their own expense. (See http://www.f18worlds2009.com)


Forthcoming Developments

At this stage there is nothing for us to do, other than wish Goran Petersson good luck with his networking activities, and be patient. If you have constructive ideas on what ISAF ought to do, should he succeed, the Athletes Commission has invited us to air them on their new forum, www.sailorvoice.org, moderated by Laura Baldwin.

Thank you again for your support. We will keep you informed. Our recently updated UKCRA website, http://www.catamaran.co.uk now contains an extensive archive on this and other subjects, including our report, Racing Sailboat Statistics, which analyses how important our branch of the sport is.

Nick Dewhirst
Chairman
United Kingdom Catamaran Racing Association



Tom Siders
A-Cat USA-79
Tornado US775