373 replies to this topic

[leadminer]

Huge drop in US sailing participation by age 12- why?

Let's see, reset to pre 1985:

• Ban all forms of "X-Games"
• Need to ban video games too
• Allow only metal wheels on skateboards
• Cable bindings on skis, and no snowboarding
• Schwinn Stingrays rule - no BMX gear allowed!
• Longboards, no shortboards and what is this kite surf thing?
• Throw out your LCD TVs and go back to CRTs
• Forget radial tires, bias ply is fine, who needs fuel injection?

Throw out any new technology after 1970, that'll give the Opti / Sabot / Laser / FJ / 420 progression a chance.


Consider a pair of equal twelve year olds, equal except that one is more assertive, quicker on the draw mentally.
Which one do you think will quit sailing to pursue a sport with more adrenaline?

Why would an 11 year old want to sail the same boat s/he started in at age eight?
Do bycycles only come in two sizes?

[SpongeBob]

I haven't read through the entire thread, so I apologize if someone has already mentioned what I'm about to say.

What aren't we sailing Olympic class boats in our collegiate sailing programs?

[rgscpat]

+1, Glen

[Goonda]

I haven't read through the entire thread, so I apologize if someone has already mentioned what I'm about to say.

What aren't we sailing Olympic class boats in our collegiate sailing programs?

I assume that "What" = "Why".

Here are the biggest answers I've seen in various discussions over the years:

Cheep = good - C420s and FJs are relatively cheep, durable, and don't have a lot of extra parts
Simple = good - I'd be willing to bet that a not-insignificant number of college sailors are sailing for their first time, so a simple boat is good
Speed = bad - Over and over again, I've read people complaining about how fast boats would ruin the quality of racing by removing tactics and maneuvering from the sport

Personally, the only argumetn that I buy into is the cost one. I think the people are generally smarter than many give them credit for. I don't think that it is smart to throw a complete newbie into 49er, but I'm sure that most would be able to handle an i420 or even a 470. As for the "speed ruins racing" argument, I just don't get it.

[franbellocchio]

Hi all,

It's the first time I write a message on this website but a very big fun of it!

Although I've hear about John and it is not in discussion how good he is, I disagree with his point of view of "Argentino" coaches. I've been working in the USA for four years specifically with the Opti fleet in different teams and for USODA in different International and National events. In contradiction with John's thoughts the level raised big time in the last two years after the hard work of many different coaches. Not just "Argentino".

My working methods are very similar than John's, lots of training and then regattas, so far so good it's been working. If you guys take a look of the last two years International regattas you will see a big improvement of the US fleet. More recently, one of the sailors that I've been coaching got 7th overall at IODA WORLDS with just 12 years old. The team also got 2nd Overall at the Miami Herald Trophy (Total points of the 5 members) right after SIngapure. First time in the 50 years of the Optimist Class

Besides he has three more years in that class and very hungry to win the next worlds, I think that 12 years old kid is a potential Olimpic medalist if he gets the right coaching and training after Optimist. Maybe US sailing will have to think about the next generation coming and provide them with the right program.

Anyways, the last thing I'll like to say is that I'm not leaving "La vida loca" with the money I made as a coach. Believe me I don't drive a Porsche.

USA has lots of potential and I wish you the best with the future generation.

Regards,

FB

[kent_island_sailor]

So basically the USA is doomed, at least as far as dinghy racing goes in the Olympics

UNIQUEPOINT OF VIEW

I'dlike to keep this post going a bit longer, specifically thecomparison between the US Sailing program and Europe. We havean interesting view point in that my son has sailed for both theFrench national team as well as for US Sailing Team Alphagraphics. We've been on the inside of two national programs that don't havemuch in common in their approach to international dingy racing.




OUREXPERIENCE

Whilean American, I've spent the last 35 years as a ex-pat in Africa, themiddle East and Europe. For the past 15+ years my family hasbeen based on the south coast of France where my kids did theireducation up to university, and where my son started sailing at thelocal club in our village.




TheFrench system is similar to that described by others for the UK. My son raced Optis from the age of 10 up to the limit at 14. Racing is organized by public sailing clubs in most of the coastaltowns and villages. In our "league", betweenMarseille and the Italian border there were 16 clubs where any kidcould join for abut $200 a year. We can sail here year round.




Theclub provides boats, instruction, and training. Practice forthe Opti team was Saturday and Wednesday afternoons. Everyother Sunday there is a regatta at one of the clubs. Averagefleet size was 100+ on one line. Additionally, at least twicea season there were "inter-league" regattas where the kidssailed against the other leagues running up toward Geneva and west toSpain. Again fleet sizes were over 100. There was alsoan international regatta every year on the Med coast.




Asthe kids progressed and improved their results, they were chosen forthe "league team", which was about 25 sailors. Theseboys and girls then were invited during school vacations to one weekspecial training clinics with several coaches at one of the regionalcenters. This group also got to participate in national andinternational regattas, giving the kids their first experience ofthis type of competition at age 12 or 13 on average.




Thebest kids at this stage then participated at the Europeanchampionships as well as the ISAF Opti Worlds. Many have hadtop 5 finishes.




At14, the kids who want to continue generally move either to Laser orI-420. Same type of training and coaching organization, butadapted to the kids schooling requirements. Also, there is agreater opportunity to move into real international competition. At the large national and European I-420 regattas you may have 15+ countries and anywhere from 80 to 140 boats.




Myson went the I-420 route. Emphasis was always on boat speed,tuning, boat speed, spinnaker and boat speed. The better kidsagain get chosen for extra training time and finally make thenational team for the Europeans and the ISAF Worlds. While anAmerican citizen, my son participated once at the Europeans and three times at the I-420 Worlds as part of the French national team.







ROLEOF PUBLIC FUNDING IN EUROPE

Thesailing clubs in France are partially funded by the Ministry ofSport. While sailing for France in I-420 the local club provided anew boat about every 18 months. We parents supplied the sails. The club picked up about 20% of the travel costs. The regionalgovernment in Toulon, also provided travel money once a year. Altogether, I would guess the parents paid about half of the totalsupport cost for a year with the rest coming from the public purse. Split between two families, it was doable.




COLLEGESAILING

Afterfinishing 5th at the I-420 Worlds in 2005, my son Alex headed off tocollege in the US and sailed for St. Mary's. Despite hisbackground, he never really got to the top level of college sailing,although he did do a lot of racing. I asked him once why hisresults were't better and he said, while he liked the sailors, andbeing on the team, he found fleet racing in Club 420s un-interesting. He did like team racing, but was always an alternate, neverhaving done it before in Europe.




SoAlex had an average college sailing career. He wasn't an AllAmerican. However, in the three I-420 Worlds he competed inprior to college, only one American (Mikee Anderson Mitterling,college sailor of the year in 2005) beat him, and that by a only fewplaces. That was at Alex's first Worlds in 2003. At the othertwo Worlds he went to, no American was even in the Gold Fleet whilehe finished twice in the top ten. This included several AllAmericans.




Sowhat does this say? I think it says high school and collegesailing are a domain apart. They provide excellent competitionand a lot of fun, as well as a good understanding of the rules. I sailed at Wisconsin and loved it. But, as preparation forinternational competition they are not sufficient. I guessthat's not news.







OUREXPERIENCE WITH THE US SAILING TEAM, CONTRACT, FUNDING,INSURANCE, MORAL SUPPORT.

Followingcollege Alex launched an Olympic campaign in the 49er, with ValSmith, also of St. Mary's.




AnOlympic campaign is a full time endeavor. Sourcing equipment,finding and working with a coach, training both on the water and inthe gym, travel, and regattas take up most of the year. And, raising the necessary funding takes up the rest.




Itis in the funding that American sailors are at a huge disadvantagewith respect to the rest of the world. The US has no Ministryof Sports. No public funding for athletes. Compare thatto the rest of the world. The funds supporting the other majorteams have been discussed earlier in this thread. This is theenvironment in which the American kids have to compete.




Ihave no problem with our system in America. But the result isthat any American sailor, from a family of average means, who wantsto race at a high level in an Olympic class, must become anentrepreneur. They must create their own mini-enterprise so asto attract the sponsorship necessary to train, travel and compete. And this is far from easy.




Alexand Val got a second hand boat from the French Team, bought a campingtrailer, put the boat on top, and did 5 ISAF World Cup regattasduring the summer of 2010. Back to the USA in August,then a cross country trip to train for 2 months in the big air offCalifornia prior to the Miami OCR. Friends family and foolscontributed about $25K to what the boys had saved to make it happen.




Theyfinished top ten at Miami and 2nd American boat, so were signed oncontractually to the US Sailing Team Alphagraphics for the 2011season. Great. We were hopeful that this would lead tomore successful fundraising. We needed about $75K for theseason to get through the Worlds in Perth, which was the second ofthe Olympic qualifying regattas for London. (Yes, you had topay your own way to Perth, Western Australia to have any chance ofqualifying for the games.) But, after letters, emails, phone callsand PowerPoints to 50 companies, we never found an anchor sponsor,and US Sailing didn't show any interest in helping.




Thestress of going from regatta to regatta and not knowing where thenext months funding would come from took a toll on both Alex and Val,and certainly took their focus off training. Alex's French,English, Italian friends and others, racing 49ers in the sameregattas, had no such worries.




Finally,their Olympic campaign ended abruptly in May 2011 with a serious leginjury to Alex at the Delta Lloyd regatta in Medemblik Holland, 10days before the first qualifying regatta at Weymouth. Alexcame home, and that was the end of his association with US SailingTeam. Or, I should say, it was the end of US Sailing TeamAlphagraphics' association with Alex. Not one of the trainers,team leaders or coaches called Alex after his injury and departure. He went from Red Jacket team member to non-person in the time it tookto flip the boat. But, more surprising still, the costs forthe ambulance, hospital treatment in Holland, and of course 6 monthsof medical bills and physiotherapy in France was at our own charge.




Itseems more than incredible to me that a US sanctioned athlete, who isrequired, by contract, to travel and compete internationally, is notprovided a minimum of health insurance. In France, the kidscan't even start training until they show the results of theirphysical and present their insurance card.




Myopinion of the US Sailing Team is …..............







HOWCOULD THE USA CREATE A PROGRAM SIMILAR TO THE BEST IN THE WORLD?

TheUS needs a much deeper pool of young sailors from a wider variety ofbackgrounds. How to do this? I can no longer say. Ilive in France. But, the basis needs to be on public clubs, noton Yacht Clubs. Parents of moderate means, need to be able toput their young athletes into a program for a few hundred dollars ayear. They need access to simple boats to get started. Yet, over 12 or 14 they need to move to boats where tuning isrequired to make them competitive. They need a team coach, notindividual coaches. They need to compete regularly throughout the year at local andregional regattas. This will be tough obviously north of the40th parallel. (Although perhaps easier in the future asclimate change advances).




Nextthing, for the real racing program, the clubs should stick tointernational classes - I-420, Laser, 470, 29er, 49er, 505,etc. where the opportunity for international competition isavailable. Club 420, Flying Juniors, V-15s have their place,but it shouldn't be in preparation for international racing. College sailing can do what it wants. But, it should be prettyclear that they aren't preparing future Olympic champions. AnnaTunnicliff is an exception.







PROGRAMS

So,let's assume that in the future we have a larger, diverse groupsailors in their teens, who have come up through a new, enlargedprogram and are ready for international competition. They arein the USA. The competition and main regattas are in Europe. How do you get the two together?




Oneidea might be a boarding school set up in Europe where say 50kids could do their high school equivalent away from home with realemphasis on the sailing and competition side. My son did hissenior year of high school (lycée) at a special school run bythe French Ministry of Sport for high level athletes in Antibes. He did well in school and well at the worlds.




Or,sailing scholarships to European Universities, linked to a localtraining program. It would be great for our kids, and as wellit could turn into an exchange program as many European kids wouldlove to do a year university in the US combined with a collegesailing program. Out of the box thinking, but possible.




Theshort story is that if kids train and compete only in the US asthings are currently set up, then their chances for medals ininternational competitions, including the Olympics, will be slim tozero.







FUNDING

Howdo you fund such a program in the age of Paul Ryan budgets? Certainly not through a Ministry of Sport, as is the case in Europe. It will never exist in the US. (It's going to be harder andharder for European societies to continue funding some of thesericher programs.) So, who else has the pockets big enough tosponsor community sailing clubs oriented at building internationallycompetitive sailors? Again, I don't know. It's clear,that if a US city can't afford police or a fire department, a sailingclub is not a priority.




But,I suspect there are thousands of Americans who might be persuaded topart with a few hundred thousand bucks for a specific program, ratherthan pay taxes for things they don't like. I know this existsin various ways today. (Mainly for political campaigns) Maybe it could be applied to high level international sailing aswell. Would it take a new loophole in tax law? Big deal. Whowould notice?




Apush could be made to get some of the corporate sponsors, or justmega-rich Americans to forgo the AC or Volvo so as to sponsor aregional program. Imagine something like the ICSA regions each being sponsored by some company like IBM or Goldman Sachs! Ormaybe the US could start a national LOTO for funding. Look atthe British example.




Originalthinking required.










SUMMARY

TheUS has hundreds of problems worse that the results of the US SailingTeam (current sponsor name) in London. However, the US sailingcommunity is large, diverse, socially adept, and I would guess, unhappy with the results in Weymouth. And they shouldbe.




TheUS sailors have as much talent as any. What they lack is anorganization to teach them solid basics at a young age, as well as the moresophisticated techniques that modern performance dingy racingrequires as they grow. And all this by the age of 18. They also lackthe opportunity to compete against the best in the world, who mainlycompete in Europe (even if they come from Down Under or LatinAmerica).




Tohave better results internationally in the future, the US will haveto solve the conundrum:

• More athletes coming from diverse backgrounds
• Lower cost
• Community clubs based
• Less reliance on high school and college programs
• Competent coaches who themselves are trained as coaches
• More technical boats for 14 and over
• Longer regatta seasons (not just a summer sport)
• Regular presence at European competitions
• Escape from US Sailing control
• How to fund the above
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

What are the chances of this happening? Slim to none I'd guess.




Good luck

[Ancient_Mariner]

Actually, I think that this site gives a fair depiction of what is wrong with sailboat racing in the USA versus much of the rest of the developed world, and it aint just about money. To be good much less great one has to passionately want it and be willing to make the requisite sacrifices to get there. And, as I am re-discovering now, it is much harder to get motivated to do it well in a vacuum. If there isn't a community supporting and sustaining active involvment in self-betterment towards a meaningful goal it gets easy to say whatever, I'd rather hang out at home, play with meself, and talk shit about others. Unfortunately, sitting in a bar, talking shit about those willing to try soething hard whilst extolling the virtues of junior sailing doesn't cut it either. Being 50, 60, or even 70 years old, putting yourself in difficult, potentially humiliating positions (talking about on the race course and not with hookers or hookups) and taking your lumps, driving a car worth less than your boat, spending your vacation racing, getting cold and wet regularly, training to extend your fitness, taking shit from acquaintances for doing things that look funny to them, that is actually what it takes. Not havinga facebook page, or fundraiser, or letting your equipment deteriorate, those things won't make you more competitive. And spending more time on SA than on the water or training or bimbling is just another symptom. seeya, I'm going sailing because the non-Americans are kicking ass in Weymouth, deservedly, and most of the readers here seem to care more about that than how they're accomplishing it. I have yet to see a comment about the techniques on display or the changes in our sport. Why is that Irish chick so far ahead offwind when she is big for her class? Am I the only one to mention how much she is steering and turning her boat catch every wave she can? More participation and less spectation.

+100!

it made no sense when he said it the first time. +100??? Really?????

an old fuck like me reads that as "oh...some young guy figured out what it takes but doesn't quite know how to make the point".


practice practice practice has been around for a long time. Equipment has improved immeasurably while the necessary attitude remains the same. Some do..Some don't. Olympics

Hey! I'M the old fuck around here. Don't be misrepresenting yourself (again)!

I should tell everyone here about my attempt to make it to the '76 games....nahh...nvm, I don't want to start up those old nightmares again.

[optimist-academy.ch]

Well described, really well.

Being based in SUI I often travel to FRA to train and race with the opti kids. Fortunately there is a similar system in SUI as in FRA, which helped improve our level. Unfortunately it seems as the support from the government in FRA is decreasing... (probably due to the decrease in tax money...). At least it looks like the FRA sailors (at least in the opti class) are struggeling somehow...

UNIQUEPOINT OF VIEW

I'dlike to keep this post going a bit longer, specifically thecomparison between the US Sailing program and Europe. We havean interesting view point in that my son has sailed for both theFrench national team as well as for US Sailing Team Alphagraphics. We've been on the inside of two national programs that don't havemuch in common in their approach to international dingy racing.




OUREXPERIENCE

Whilean American, I've spent the last 35 years as a ex-pat in Africa, themiddle East and Europe. For the past 15+ years my family hasbeen based on the south coast of France where my kids did theireducation up to university, and where my son started sailing at thelocal club in our village.




TheFrench system is similar to that described by others for the UK. My son raced Optis from the age of 10 up to the limit at 14. Racing is organized by public sailing clubs in most of the coastaltowns and villages. In our "league", betweenMarseille and the Italian border there were 16 clubs where any kidcould join for abut $200 a year. We can sail here year round.




Theclub provides boats, instruction, and training. Practice forthe Opti team was Saturday and Wednesday afternoons. Everyother Sunday there is a regatta at one of the clubs. Averagefleet size was 100+ on one line. Additionally, at least twicea season there were "inter-league" regattas where the kidssailed against the other leagues running up toward Geneva and west toSpain. Again fleet sizes were over 100. There was alsoan international regatta every year on the Med coast.




Asthe kids progressed and improved their results, they were chosen forthe "league team", which was about 25 sailors. Theseboys and girls then were invited during school vacations to one weekspecial training clinics with several coaches at one of the regionalcenters. This group also got to participate in national andinternational regattas, giving the kids their first experience ofthis type of competition at age 12 or 13 on average.




Thebest kids at this stage then participated at the Europeanchampionships as well as the ISAF Opti Worlds. Many have hadtop 5 finishes.




At14, the kids who want to continue generally move either to Laser orI-420. Same type of training and coaching organization, butadapted to the kids schooling requirements. Also, there is agreater opportunity to move into real international competition. At the large national and European I-420 regattas you may have 15+ countries and anywhere from 80 to 140 boats.




Myson went the I-420 route. Emphasis was always on boat speed,tuning, boat speed, spinnaker and boat speed. The better kidsagain get chosen for extra training time and finally make thenational team for the Europeans and the ISAF Worlds. While anAmerican citizen, my son participated once at the Europeans and three times at the I-420 Worlds as part of the French national team.







ROLEOF PUBLIC FUNDING IN EUROPE

Thesailing clubs in France are partially funded by the Ministry ofSport. While sailing for France in I-420 the local club provided anew boat about every 18 months. We parents supplied the sails. The club picked up about 20% of the travel costs. The regionalgovernment in Toulon, also provided travel money once a year. Altogether, I would guess the parents paid about half of the totalsupport cost for a year with the rest coming from the public purse. Split between two families, it was doable.




COLLEGESAILING

Afterfinishing 5th at the I-420 Worlds in 2005, my son Alex headed off tocollege in the US and sailed for St. Mary's. Despite hisbackground, he never really got to the top level of college sailing,although he did do a lot of racing. I asked him once why hisresults were't better and he said, while he liked the sailors, andbeing on the team, he found fleet racing in Club 420s un-interesting. He did like team racing, but was always an alternate, neverhaving done it before in Europe.




SoAlex had an average college sailing career. He wasn't an AllAmerican. However, in the three I-420 Worlds he competed inprior to college, only one American (Mikee Anderson Mitterling,college sailor of the year in 2005) beat him, and that by a only fewplaces. That was at Alex's first Worlds in 2003. At the othertwo Worlds he went to, no American was even in the Gold Fleet whilehe finished twice in the top ten. This included several AllAmericans.




Sowhat does this say? I think it says high school and collegesailing are a domain apart. They provide excellent competitionand a lot of fun, as well as a good understanding of the rules. I sailed at Wisconsin and loved it. But, as preparation forinternational competition they are not sufficient. I guessthat's not news.







OUREXPERIENCE WITH THE US SAILING TEAM, CONTRACT, FUNDING,INSURANCE, MORAL SUPPORT.

Followingcollege Alex launched an Olympic campaign in the 49er, with ValSmith, also of St. Mary's.




AnOlympic campaign is a full time endeavor. Sourcing equipment,finding and working with a coach, training both on the water and inthe gym, travel, and regattas take up most of the year. And, raising the necessary funding takes up the rest.




Itis in the funding that American sailors are at a huge disadvantagewith respect to the rest of the world. The US has no Ministryof Sports. No public funding for athletes. Compare thatto the rest of the world. The funds supporting the other majorteams have been discussed earlier in this thread. This is theenvironment in which the American kids have to compete.




Ihave no problem with our system in America. But the result isthat any American sailor, from a family of average means, who wantsto race at a high level in an Olympic class, must become anentrepreneur. They must create their own mini-enterprise so asto attract the sponsorship necessary to train, travel and compete. And this is far from easy.




Alexand Val got a second hand boat from the French Team, bought a campingtrailer, put the boat on top, and did 5 ISAF World Cup regattasduring the summer of 2010. Back to the USA in August,then a cross country trip to train for 2 months in the big air offCalifornia prior to the Miami OCR. Friends family and foolscontributed about $25K to what the boys had saved to make it happen.




Theyfinished top ten at Miami and 2nd American boat, so were signed oncontractually to the US Sailing Team Alphagraphics for the 2011season. Great. We were hopeful that this would lead tomore successful fundraising. We needed about $75K for theseason to get through the Worlds in Perth, which was the second ofthe Olympic qualifying regattas for London. (Yes, you had topay your own way to Perth, Western Australia to have any chance ofqualifying for the games.) But, after letters, emails, phone callsand PowerPoints to 50 companies, we never found an anchor sponsor,and US Sailing didn't show any interest in helping.




Thestress of going from regatta to regatta and not knowing where thenext months funding would come from took a toll on both Alex and Val,and certainly took their focus off training. Alex's French,English, Italian friends and others, racing 49ers in the sameregattas, had no such worries.




Finally,their Olympic campaign ended abruptly in May 2011 with a serious leginjury to Alex at the Delta Lloyd regatta in Medemblik Holland, 10days before the first qualifying regatta at Weymouth. Alexcame home, and that was the end of his association with US SailingTeam. Or, I should say, it was the end of US Sailing TeamAlphagraphics' association with Alex. Not one of the trainers,team leaders or coaches called Alex after his injury and departure. He went from Red Jacket team member to non-person in the time it tookto flip the boat. But, more surprising still, the costs forthe ambulance, hospital treatment in Holland, and of course 6 monthsof medical bills and physiotherapy in France was at our own charge.




Itseems more than incredible to me that a US sanctioned athlete, who isrequired, by contract, to travel and compete internationally, is notprovided a minimum of health insurance. In France, the kidscan't even start training until they show the results of theirphysical and present their insurance card.




Myopinion of the US Sailing Team is …..............







HOWCOULD THE USA CREATE A PROGRAM SIMILAR TO THE BEST IN THE WORLD?

TheUS needs a much deeper pool of young sailors from a wider variety ofbackgrounds. How to do this? I can no longer say. Ilive in France. But, the basis needs to be on public clubs, noton Yacht Clubs. Parents of moderate means, need to be able toput their young athletes into a program for a few hundred dollars ayear. They need access to simple boats to get started. Yet, over 12 or 14 they need to move to boats where tuning isrequired to make them competitive. They need a team coach, notindividual coaches. They need to compete regularly throughout the year at local andregional regattas. This will be tough obviously north of the40th parallel. (Although perhaps easier in the future asclimate change advances).




Nextthing, for the real racing program, the clubs should stick tointernational classes - I-420, Laser, 470, 29er, 49er, 505,etc. where the opportunity for international competition isavailable. Club 420, Flying Juniors, V-15s have their place,but it shouldn't be in preparation for international racing. College sailing can do what it wants. But, it should be prettyclear that they aren't preparing future Olympic champions. AnnaTunnicliff is an exception.







PROGRAMS

So,let's assume that in the future we have a larger, diverse groupsailors in their teens, who have come up through a new, enlargedprogram and are ready for international competition. They arein the USA. The competition and main regattas are in Europe. How do you get the two together?




Oneidea might be a boarding school set up in Europe where say 50kids could do their high school equivalent away from home with realemphasis on the sailing and competition side. My son did hissenior year of high school (lycée) at a special school run bythe French Ministry of Sport for high level athletes in Antibes. He did well in school and well at the worlds.




Or,sailing scholarships to European Universities, linked to a localtraining program. It would be great for our kids, and as wellit could turn into an exchange program as many European kids wouldlove to do a year university in the US combined with a collegesailing program. Out of the box thinking, but possible.




Theshort story is that if kids train and compete only in the US asthings are currently set up, then their chances for medals ininternational competitions, including the Olympics, will be slim tozero.







FUNDING

Howdo you fund such a program in the age of Paul Ryan budgets? Certainly not through a Ministry of Sport, as is the case in Europe. It will never exist in the US. (It's going to be harder andharder for European societies to continue funding some of thesericher programs.) So, who else has the pockets big enough tosponsor community sailing clubs oriented at building internationallycompetitive sailors? Again, I don't know. It's clear,that if a US city can't afford police or a fire department, a sailingclub is not a priority.




But,I suspect there are thousands of Americans who might be persuaded topart with a few hundred thousand bucks for a specific program, ratherthan pay taxes for things they don't like. I know this existsin various ways today. (Mainly for political campaigns) Maybe it could be applied to high level international sailing aswell. Would it take a new loophole in tax law? Big deal. Whowould notice?




Apush could be made to get some of the corporate sponsors, or justmega-rich Americans to forgo the AC or Volvo so as to sponsor aregional program. Imagine something like the ICSA regions each being sponsored by some company like IBM or Goldman Sachs! Ormaybe the US could start a national LOTO for funding. Look atthe British example.




Originalthinking required.










SUMMARY

TheUS has hundreds of problems worse that the results of the US SailingTeam (current sponsor name) in London. However, the US sailingcommunity is large, diverse, socially adept, and I would guess, unhappy with the results in Weymouth. And they shouldbe.




TheUS sailors have as much talent as any. What they lack is anorganization to teach them solid basics at a young age, as well as the moresophisticated techniques that modern performance dingy racingrequires as they grow. And all this by the age of 18. They also lackthe opportunity to compete against the best in the world, who mainlycompete in Europe (even if they come from Down Under or LatinAmerica).




Tohave better results internationally in the future, the US will haveto solve the conundrum:

• More athletes coming from diverse backgrounds
• Lower cost
• Community clubs based
• Less reliance on high school and college programs
• Competent coaches who themselves are trained as coaches
• More technical boats for 14 and over
• Longer regatta seasons (not just a summer sport)
• Regular presence at European competitions
• Escape from US Sailing control
• How to fund the above
  
  
  
  
  

  
  

What are the chances of this happening? Slim to none I'd guess.




Good luck

[Damp Freddie]

"we're going to look at all public spending programmes funded by loans, and if it isn't necessary for the US then we ain't gonna loan money from the Chinese to pay for it"


SO sailing is for rich spoilt brats soon who won't be any good at the whole medals thing.

And then you will fund the Iran war with money from China.

[optimist-academy.ch]

Disagree - or at least I say it's not the kids fault but the parents/coaches

-my opti kids love to watch x-games, pay video games, watch TV as any other kid BUT they don't complain if they have to do without. Not a single word from them during a week without TV or video games last week during the nationals...
-my best sailors are actually also really, really good skiers (helps with the balance, I guess) and while we did some ski cross last winter I had to put my act together as not to loose (doing the same thing, his dad broke a wrist)
-plenty of my 12+ kids still love to sail in the opti. Only reason the leave early is because they grow to fast... Why you ask? they might be competitors on the water but are close friends on land that includes kids from other clubs, regions and countries ...my guess
-As any other kids, my Opti kids are adrenaline junkies as well (see skiing...) some of them were already on fast (sailing) boats. Why do they stay in the opti? They can rig the boat themselves, they can launch it themselves, no other (adult) needed on the boat and when it blows it gives 'em enough adrenaline http://www.youtube.c...bed/sDo3ijLkMdI

Anyhow, opti is ONLY the start of a sailing career. And most of the Olympic sailors are former opti kids...

Huge drop in US sailing participation by age 12- why?

Let's see, reset to pre 1985:

• Ban all forms of "X-Games"
• Need to ban video games too
• Allow only metal wheels on skateboards
• Cable bindings on skis, and no snowboarding
• Schwinn Stingrays rule - no BMX gear allowed!
• Longboards, no shortboards and what is this kite surf thing?
• Throw out your LCD TVs and go back to CRTs
• Forget radial tires, bias ply is fine, who needs fuel injection?

Throw out any new technology after 1970, that'll give the Opti / Sabot / Laser / FJ / 420 progression a chance.


Consider a pair of equal twelve year olds, equal except that one is more assertive, quicker on the draw mentally.
Which one do you think will quit sailing to pursue a sport with more adrenaline?

Why would an 11 year old want to sail the same boat s/he started in at age eight?
Do bycycles only come in two sizes?

[hdglightning]

The issue with high level sailing in the USA is simple...there is no "grass roots" development. The USA supports the top, and even then only if they win. Second place is first loser, not an accomplishment. This is the USA's perception as a whole, not individual...and mostly media driven, but it affects everything.

People used to look at the USSR's programs from the 70's/80's and talk about how horrible they were. Prob were...but they (And China's program now) have one thing in common...they were grass roots development programs. Yes structured, but they started development, training, opportunities, etc at a young age and SUPPORTED it 100%.

Here in the USA I was involved in one of the greatest examples of grass roots working (and then failing). Lehigh Valley Velodrome in T-Town Pa had in the early 90's (and earlier) one of the greatest development programs I ever saw (Air Products program). Kids, adults, schools, etc...all could participate, and it was awesome. A structured racing program (Sat = beginnners, Tues = advanced, fridays = pros/top) as well as the excellent Air Products program created a HUGE pipeline in the area for talent, growth, and success.

Out of that cam many people, notable Marty Nothstein who won several gold medals and a number of world championships! All due to this process.

In the run up to the 96 games they "changed" the velodrome from grass roots development into a focus on the top. For about 5 years this worked, and we had great success...but no replacement to Marty and the like. The developmental programs reduced, the funding became more focused, and frankly the attitude changed for the negative. Even Friday nights where the stands were full EVERY night...ended up being reduced and 1/3 full. Why? Because no one gets behind XYZ nameless pro from out of the country...but they do get behind local guy PDQ who they have seen every day for years rise up to the top.

Come 2000 the LVV is left as a shadow of itself. 10 years later...not much better. Some talent, but no real interest being shown because the place is now seen as an "elite" location...vs a place to take your 5year old and watch them ride around the track.

US Sports (sailing included) will NEVER get over this because we simply are unwilling to address this issue. A couple of sports have it, baseball, football, and somewhat basketball. But all others...you need to prove you are #1 before anyone looks at you, and even then it is conditional on staying #1. Get second...and you are first loser.

USSailing having a qualifer in PERTH! I saw that and laughed. There should be regional qualifiers, then national qualifiers, and a rating system in the USA...and ONLY in the USA. Sure, international experience helps...but frankly if you can't beat your local "pro" then you have no chance elsewhere. So lets get the local pro interested.

I can think of a dozen names who would do VERY well at the Olympics, but would never even bother because the costs outweigh the benefit. The Fishers, Terhunes, Lintons, etc. These guys are the exact people who should be targeted for participation, and have the diversity and experience to do so (and prove it over and over). Yet because of how things are structured we essentially send the person who "can afford" it vs the best. And that is always the US's failing (in all sports).

[Just Another Sailor]

The sad ending to Glen's letter is he is correct in saying that the final outcome will be slim to none.

As American's we are so independent to see the greater good. I am not in position or anyone for that matter for evaluate Larry Ellison's need to retain the America's Cup. However, a 100 million dollar endowment to fund the National Sailing Team would deliver winning results forever. My question to Larry and any other potential living large individual is; what experience would be more rewarding, winning the Cup or a perpetual monument to US Sailing and it's sailing athletes?

A single or 10 or 20 donors can change this bleak situation for Us Sailing. Any takers? Or is Glen right the outcome is slim to none.

[gonecscowing]

Olympic sailing like most olympic sports is more politics than talent. Being a member of the US Sailing team is more who you know and how you are funded than talent. Expecting Useless Sailing to fix it is really dumb. I would never give to the "team", that money goes into the black hole. You are better off gving to a sailor that you know who is trying to make the team, than the organization.

[AClass USA 230]

Grass roots sailing as we know it in many areas of the US is very far off the radar screen of any path towards international or Olympic sailing competition (and in many cases even national competition).

I live in Louisiana and I am a member of a club in the GYA (Gulf Yachting Association) which covers Houston to the Florida panhandle. The GYA for many, many years has focused on an interclub racing program each year called the Capdeville series. When I first started sailing in 1971 at age 13, they were using club owned Flying Scots and they still are using club owned Flying Scots for adult and junior sailing events. In the past there were hardly any Optimist programs but there are several now. There is nothing wrong with the Scot for what it used for as it is a pretty decent learn to sail sloop, works well for any event that needs a 3 person centerboard sloop, and is a relatively good interclub racing boat. But it is certainly not an exciting boat to sail and it looks very long in the tooth compared to newer classes and designs. The mistake the GYA makes in my opinion is that 95% of its focus and efforts is on the Flying Scot and its Capdeville program (some in the GYA have called it the Gulf Coast Flying Scot Association).

At many GYA clubs, there are minimal privately owned small one design boats and that to me is a big problem. Those who don't sail or race the club owned Scots either don't sail or typically race PHRF mostly in keelboats that are 30-40 years old, certainly not very much cutting edge stuff going on around here. There are pockets of small boat activity with some Sunfish, Laser/Laser Radial, some Finns, and one V-15 fleet I am aware of. One club does a pretty good job with club Portsmouth racing but we are talking small numbers here, typically 10 boats or less for anything other than Flying Scots. Even at the premier annual Capdeville event (the Lipton Championship), they typically only see 20-25 boats and crews are rotated by the event rules. Some clubs have some C420's but for the most part, kids are pushed towards Scots when they come out of any club Opti program. At my own club, we have less than 8 kids interested in racing Scots and a LOT of kids more interested in swimming in the pool or playing football on the front lawn. Junior sailing is not taken seriously and most of the non-sailing adult members look at the annual junior summer sail camp as the barometer of a healthy "junior" sailing program. It's nothing more than a baby-sitting service that does not result in any junior sailing talent that is capable of competing in national events (nor do the kids have any desire to go higher).

I cannot remember the last time I saw a GYA junior sailor compete with any success at a US Sailing youth championship. The typical GYA club has few to none adult members sailing in a one design class. I appreciate previous comments in this thread where if you sail a high performance dinghy, multihull, skiff, or sailboard in the US, you probably live in a vacuum locally, in many cases you are viewed as "extreme" by the club membership who sail the slow old boats, and you probably travel a lot if you want to enjoy racing your high performance class. That's the case for me with both my A-Class catamaran and my Corsair trimaran. There are actually 12 A-Cats between three clubs in the GYA but to race, most of us need to travel at least 4-6 hours. I've considered getting more involved with my club in building more small boat activity but I've come to believe it will be like beating your head against a brick wall to make anything positive happen.

American sailors seem to suffer from the "fat and lazy" mindset. We don't sail or race interesting and fun boats anymore, many can't see beyond the ends of their noses in terms of their agendas, and junior sailing programs are not taken seriously in most (not all) of the yacht clubs in this country. A serious junior sailing program is one that teaches basic skills, promotes a healthy junior racing schedule with other clubs within an association, and then provides support to identify a path for those kids who want to pursue national and eventually international or Olympic competition. Adult mentors who actually sail small one designs seem few and far between and putting a post-Opti kid on a PHRF boat is not the answer.

If what I describe is common or similar as I suspect it is around the country, than I believe US Sailing should focus on how to get the adult sailing population interested again in small boat one design sailing. That would be the foundation to develop young talent (especially with mentoring) that could get more young sailors competing on a level that could lead to an Olympic medal.

[hdglightning]

The point of "grass roots" programs is not specifically to produce a pipeline to the Olympics. That may or may not come later. The point is that athletic sports such as sailing (in the Olympics that is) require a "refresh" of athletes every 4-12 years depending on class, fitness, etc. You HAVE to have a pool of new talented people coming up in each area to support this.

To have a pool of say 100 people to pull from, that requires 5000 to distill down. So yes, those Flying Scot people are VERY important. They provide the interest, access, training, and introduction to the sport.

Here is what people forget. To really succeed at say the Olympics you need a HUGE pool of people to pull from. You take that huge pool, and distill it down, again and again and again until you get the top lets say 20. The top 20 end up being the ones who battle for the single spot. But they come from thousands and thousands. Yes there is some luck, yes there is some politics, yes sometimes a really good person just does not get noticed (imagine for say Basketball/NBA...there are millions of awesome players...but only a couple hundred NBA players).

Sailing just does not have the pool, and that pool comes from grass roots programs. Unlike basketball where kids can play on the corner, sailing requires structured programs to feed the pool. We can't also rely on college...because again there is a limited pool and limited outcome there. We need a better program and a better pool.

Right now the pool is small and the talent "while good is limited". They are the best of what we have, and we should be proud of them. But frankly that is not good enough. In almost every class there is VERY little new blood, and even fewer opportunities. Stagnation is BAD. Limited access is BAD. Etc.

If you are serious about Olympic sailing "better" then you have to invest in this in a big way. It is not sufficient to try to pick from the limited people we have right now. It is just not enough and will never compete with the smaller countries (such as the UK) who have a GREAT pipeline and development program.

[AClass USA 230]

The point of "grass roots" programs is not specifically to produce a pipeline to the Olympics. That may or may not come later. The point is that athletic sports such as sailing (in the Olympics that is) require a "refresh" of athletes every 4-12 years depending on class, fitness, etc. You HAVE to have a pool of new talented people coming up in each area to support this.

To have a pool of say 100 people to pull from, that requires 5000 to distill down. So yes, those Flying Scot people are VERY important. They provide the interest, access, training, and introduction to the sport.

Here is what people forget. To really succeed at say the Olympics you need a HUGE pool of people to pull from. You take that huge pool, and distill it down, again and again and again until you get the top lets say 20. The top 20 end up being the ones who battle for the single spot. But they come from thousands and thousands. Yes there is some luck, yes there is some politics, yes sometimes a really good person just does not get noticed (imagine for say Basketball/NBA...there are millions of awesome players...but only a couple hundred NBA players).

Sailing just does not have the pool, and that pool comes from grass roots programs. Unlike basketball where kids can play on the corner, sailing requires structured programs to feed the pool. We can't also rely on college...because again there is a limited pool and limited outcome there. We need a better program and a better pool.

Right now the pool is small and the talent "while good is limited". They are the best of what we have, and we should be proud of them. But frankly that is not good enough. In almost every class there is VERY little new blood, and even fewer opportunities. Stagnation is BAD. Limited access is BAD. Etc.

If you are serious about Olympic sailing "better" then you have to invest in this in a big way. It is not sufficient to try to pick from the limited people we have right now. It is just not enough and will never compete with the smaller countries (such as the UK) who have a GREAT pipeline and development program.

I think we are saying the same thing. You have to rebuild the small boat sailing population first to create the talent pool. My critique of the Flying Scot Capdeville program in the GYA is that the club-owned boat requirement results in a relatively small group of sailors at each club who are active in Scot racing because of the typical 3-4 boat Flying Scot fleet at each club. There is nothing more I would like to see than the GYA investing as much energy into trying to encourage and develop small boat one design classes (privately owned boats) that the clubs will embrace, that get more adults back into small boat sailing, and help lead to that small boat mentoring thing again (sorry, I cringe when the only opportunity beyond the current Optis and Scots are taking kids on PHRF boats with adults who sometimes smoke and drink while "racing"). I was a member of Southern Yacht Club in the mid 80's and participated in the Snipe class that took root for a while. At one point we had 35 boats in the parking lot, hosted a Snipe Nationals and had juniors like Tornado silver medalist Johnny Lovell cutting their racing teeth in our class. There are a lot of reasons why the class died at that club but it's a great example of the good things that happen when you get a vibrant small boat OD program going. It's possible if the priorities and energy are there.

[Mr. Squirrel]

I am confused how all of a sudden the feeder program is the problem. If I read correctly, Anna is the number 1 ranked Women's Match Racer and she won many of the regattas leading up to the Olympics. Stu and Graham are ranked 7th in 470. Amanda and Sara are ranked 6th. Zach is 6th in Finn and Paige is 4th in Radial.

We have teams that are ranked high enough we should have been competitive, yet we werent. That tells me that the team was not prepared for the pressure of London or something else was amiss. Could it be our weather and/or current team shit the bed or were none of our sailors adequately prepared for the pressure and distractions that the Olympics present?

There are problems with the USS Team, but the bigger question is why did the entire team suck so bad at the most important regatta of this quad?

Also, does anyone know why USS fired Mark Ivey as their Star coach? He was good enough to be National Coach of the Year in 2009 and was good enough to help coach Sweden to the Gold Medal, but not good enough for US Sailing. I would love to hear the explanation of that.

MS

[PeterHuston]

I am confused how all of a sudden the feeder program is the problem. If I read correctly, Anna is the number 1 ranked Women's Match Racer and she won many of the regattas leading up to the Olympics. Stu and Graham are ranked 7th in 470. Amanda and Sara are ranked 6th. Zach is 6th in Finn and Paige is 4th in Radial.

We have teams that are ranked high enough we should have been competitive, yet we werent. That tells me that the team was not prepared for the pressure of London or something else was amiss. Could it be our weather and/or current team shit the bed or were none of our sailors adequately prepared for the pressure and distractions that the Olympics present?

There are problems with the USS Team, but the bigger question is why did the entire team suck so bad at the most important regatta of this quad?

Also, does anyone know why USS fired Mark Ivey as their Star coach? He was good enough to be National Coach of the Year in 2009 and was good enough to help coach Sweden to the Gold Medal, but not good enough for US Sailing. I would love to hear the explanation of that.

MS

Mark was in the Balboa YC junior program when I was Race Admin there. He was a very talented kid, and probably as close to the example of what you'd want your 14-16 year old kid to be. His father used to come to my office on occasion, he was one parent I enjoyed having walk into my office. He was about as far removed from being the typical helicopter Opti/Sabot parent as you could find. If there were more parents like him in junior sailing, we'd have alot stronger base. Apple didn't fall very far from the tree in the Ivey family, and Mark's results are a function of all that. Thrilled to see Mark have this recent success.

The only question now is: What does Mark want to come back to the US Sailing Team? Whatever it is, give it to him, and then get out of the way.

[hdglightning]

The reason the feeder program is important is that there is no "depth" in our system. It could be argued that a country the size of the USA should have 2-3 people in the top 10 of EVERY class...
Rankings are pretty much worth nothing in my book. They are participation based when the rankings are "international". Not taking anything away from them, as they should be respected for what they are...but when looking at the "USA"...they have no bearing.

Personally I don't think they did that bad considering the circumstances they have in their "home waters". For example...Big Ben prob has a dozen or more top notch Finn sailors sailing out of his home club. Zach?

I look at match racing for example. We are here in Annapolis...and there is essentially zero match racing. What is done is done in private among a small group of VERY talented, but very closed people. I can think of 20+ people who would participate (buy boat, pay, etc)...but it is not avail. Why is that? Well...that gets to the root cause/problem.


In many sports the Olympics is the top competition, but the HARDER competition should be the Olympic trials. We need to have 20 potential people in every class battling it out for the spot, but in reality we have 2-3. That is why the feeder program is important...and frankly IMHO thats why our current crop failed to do better than they did.

I am confused how all of a sudden the feeder program is the problem. If I read correctly, Anna is the number 1 ranked Women's Match Racer and she won many of the regattas leading up to the Olympics. Stu and Graham are ranked 7th in 470. Amanda and Sara are ranked 6th. Zach is 6th in Finn and Paige is 4th in Radial.

We have teams that are ranked high enough we should have been competitive, yet we werent. That tells me that the team was not prepared for the pressure of London or something else was amiss. Could it be our weather and/or current team shit the bed or were none of our sailors adequately prepared for the pressure and distractions that the Olympics present?

There are problems with the USS Team, but the bigger question is why did the entire team suck so bad at the most important regatta of this quad?

Also, does anyone know why USS fired Mark Ivey as their Star coach? He was good enough to be National Coach of the Year in 2009 and was good enough to help coach Sweden to the Gold Medal, but not good enough for US Sailing. I would love to hear the explanation of that.

MS

[Bit Sailor]

From the sound of things, the US should have never gotten medals at any Olympics. So, how did US sailors achieve Olympic medals in the past? What used to work? Why not dissect each medal sailor’s path to their medal and see what used to work?

-BS

[SC Finnster]

In many sports the Olympics is the top competition, but the HARDER competition should be the Olympic trials. We need to have 20 potential people in every class battling it out for the spot, but in reality we have 2-3. That is why the feeder program is important...and frankly IMHO thats why our current crop failed to do better than they did.

Did we really have any more than 1 in anything other than Laser, Star and match racing?

[hdglightning]

Based on the criteria/qualification process...no we did not. Essentially we had 1 person who was the undisputed lead in each spot...and I don't think there really was any competition in each of those spots.

Competition drives better performance...

In many sports the Olympics is the top competition, but the HARDER competition should be the Olympic trials. We need to have 20 potential people in every class battling it out for the spot, but in reality we have 2-3. That is why the feeder program is important...and frankly IMHO thats why our current crop failed to do better than they did.

Did we really have any more than 1 in anything other than Laser, Star and match racing?

[hdglightning]

Individual achievement I would say. Anyone at any given day could be the champ.

I wish I could remember the book, but there is a book written about the "increase in sports" world wide over the last 15 years. The concentration being that the "level" has risen world wide. The result of which is that the dominant powerhouses (USA/Russia) who in general dominated Olympic sports are now having new pressures. The USSR/Russia broke up resulting in a less cohesive group there, though China has really "replaced" them as that dominant force.

But what has happened is that the other countries have been nipping at the fringes. Swimming and gymnastics are still "big country" dominated and account for many of the medals, but sports (such as sailing) on the fringes have been losing spots to other countries. I don't think that is a bad thing to be honest!!!

So the question is not really has the USA "lost" but has it kept pace?

I think the answer with sailing is that it has not. Many people look to the 1970-1980s as the peak of sailing and that since then it has dropped off. Well...that proves out in the development cycle and eventually in the medal count. It takes time for this to happen, but the decrease was evident in 2008, and very evident in 2012. It will prob be worse in 2016...

From the sound of things, the US should have never gotten medals at any Olympics. So, how did US sailors achieve Olympic medals in the past? What used to work? Why not dissect each medal sailor’s path to their medal and see what used to work?

-BS

[jewing]

In many sports the Olympics is the top competition, but the HARDER competition should be the Olympic trials. We need to have 20 potential people in every class battling it out for the spot, but in reality we have 2-3. That is why the feeder program is important...and frankly IMHO thats why our current crop failed to do better than they did.

Did we really have any more than 1 in anything other than Laser, Star and match racing?

Women's 470 had 2 very solid teams, and the one that didn't make the cut was ranked #1 in the world at the time.

[Eric_R.]

In many sports the Olympics is the top competition, but the HARDER competition should be the Olympic trials. We need to have 20 potential people in every class battling it out for the spot, but in reality we have 2-3. That is why the feeder program is important...and frankly IMHO thats why our current crop failed to do better than they did.

Did we really have any more than 1 in anything other than Laser, Star and match racing?

Women's 470 had 2 very solid teams, and the one that didn't make the cut was ranked #1 in the world at the time.

And lost on a tie breaker too.

http://sailingteams.ussailing.org/Games/Olympics/Track.htm

[MidPack]

I enjoyed Glen's summary and I suspect there's a lot to it. But he's also right that public funding seems more unlikely now than ever, as much as I love sailing I couldn't support public funding of community sailing centers while we don't have a handle on deficits at federal, state or city levels. If private citizens want to foot the bill that's great, but offering a loophole/tax deduction to benefit sailing or Olympics is wrong IMO, even though I'm a conservative and a sailor. We should be eliminating as many loopholes as possible, not thinking of new ones.

So Glen's right, seems like the chances of a big change are slim to none. And it sounds like some of the European countries that have been supporting programs publicly aren't going to hold up. Sad, but it's a new world...

[Sloan]

We can over analyse it to death and blame everything possible but sometimes the athlete just needs to step up to the plate and deliver. The Brit and Aussie teams are very fortunate to have such amazing talent at the moment. Maybe it is just that simple???

I agree. The Australian sailing program is pretty much non existent except for the top 1 or 2 in each Olympic class.

[Sticky Icky]

Uh, nothing personal against the lightning fleet, but the talent there isn't on the top olympic level. Hell the US 470 Womens driver was leading worlds in Chile for a couple days, and she had barely sailed the boat. The class has been struggling to keep it's ability to be allowed to hold a worlds because of a lack of international participation. Tito's been a force, but outside of him there's no international talent even in the ballpark of olympic medalists.

Problem in the US is that our talent pool is really whittled down:

Kids with the potential for olympic medal talent
|
reduced to
who either live in an area with big fleets (see light air bullshit no wave venues) or can afford to travel there from a decent place train and compete and get better by at least racing against good people (major problem because of land mass of US and because there is no support by US failing of good coaches outside of a couple of bullshit venues, so there aren't really coaches outside of that area either)
|
reduced to (now getting to the international/olympic part)
who can also afford coaching
|
reduced to
who can afford going to international events ("international" events in the US are pretty weak)
|
reduced to
who can afford all of that while going through college
|
reduced to
who can afford to not get a real job ASAP once they are having to provide for themselves (current olympic medalists aren't working non-industry full time jobs)

And what happens is that those last 5-6 conditions whittle the kids with talent down to about 5% of the original, and the reduction has nothing to do with ability.

Is anyone aware of how far a 501(j)(2) can go? Do people at US Sailing even do their research?

Why not provide coaching to youths at big events and then require that part of the provided coaching is an open coaching session after every day? Where at least all of our kids get to listen to what the coaches have to say... instead of the bullshit exclusive privatized coaching that is fucking up our system now.

Note I am not knocking the current members of the US team, I am just saying that if we want to develop medal contending sailors in the future, you can't depend on lucky sperm.

I've hated US sailing for their shitty national championship program, their shitty regionalistic snobbery, and the fact that their youth champs used to be selected on such a bullshit basis, oh sure you consistently beat these guys in regattas in your area, but oh your parents couldn't afford to send you 1/2 way across the country to "big" events drifting around in 2knots of shit breeze, so we'll have to pick them over you... Not that it applies to me but you don't think that there's a chance that someone who could have medalled is sitting somewhere watching the olympic sailing on a computer instead of standing on a podium because they just got tired of dealing with all the bullshit and gave up at an early age? The US Olympic Sailing Team's #1 priority should be to find those kids and fight the bullshit with them. Quit administrating and start developing. I swear even our local association probably spends more money on administration than running races and coaching sailors. God knows what the ratio is for US sailing as a whole. What the fuck is more important to do with the money, set up a vast expensive network of training people to drop 2 marks in the water and not fuck up a start sequence, or actually develop our youth?

And are you kidding me on allowing empty spots to be filled by resume at your nationals instead of making people, I don't know, actually qualify??? Here's a hint, you cut out the resume bullshit and people will go to the qualifiers, and if not FUCK THEM. If the Superbowl was based on resumes, the last 2 teams walking around with rings now wouldn't have even been invited...

[Peelman]

UK for some sports uses the lottery for funding. Sailing got -

Sydney - £5.1M
Athens - £7.6M
Beijing - £22.3M
London - £22.9M

http://www.uksport.g...k/sport/summer/

http://www.uksport.g...igures-olympic/

[Sloan]

Here is what people forget. To really succeed at say the Olympics you need a HUGE pool of people to pull from. You take that huge pool, and distill it down, again and again and again until you get the top lets say 20. The top 20 end up being the ones who battle for the single spot. But they come from thousands and thousands. Yes there is some luck, yes there is some politics, yes sometimes a really good person just does not get noticed (imagine for say Basketball/NBA...there are millions of awesome players...but only a couple hundred NBA players).


If you are serious about Olympic sailing "better" then you have to invest in this in a big way. It is not sufficient to try to pick from the limited people we have right now. It is just not enough and will never compete with the smaller countries (such as the UK) who have a GREAT pipeline and development program.

So how did Australia do it? Very little money and most Olympic campaigns are self funded by the sailors and their families with the exception of those that make the cut to the Australian Sailing Team. Tom Burton and Ashley Brunning would have been lucky to get 10k to help them out with their campaigns and that only after they had recorded a top 5 finish at a Grade One event. Ashley has lost all funding I think because of his 7th (I think it was 7th?) at the 2012 Europeans. All the other Aussies you see at Kiel and Hyeres and the Worlds etc every single season are paying to be there out of their own pockets. So all the whinging about how the Aussies are rich and well funded is pure garbage. If Ashley for eg didn't have mates all around the world he could stay with I suspect he would be sleeping in the boat park with a sleeping bag. No offence intended in any way to Ashley, in fact quite the opposite. The Aussie sailors are passionate about their sailing and it shows.

Plane ticket, check.
Entry paid and boat obtained, check.
Bed found, check.
Lets go race.

That has been the Aussie mantra for many years now. I recall Glenn Bourke sleeping in his car at one event when he was younger. Or was it Blackburn? It is the sailing and the search for constant improvement that matters to these guys and it shows as they gradually climb the rankings year after year.

As for lack of depth in Australia in Lasers at least, Australia could have had 3 sailors in the Medal race if they had all been able to compete and there are some younger guys coming up that are already quick and only going to get quicker.

I can think of 10 laser sailors in just a few seconds from Australia that would have been far from last in the Olympics, some of them even being master sailors.

If sailors in the USA feel hard done by give a thought to the Aussies. Most of them just have normal working parents and they all self fund to race. No one is buying them air tickets and paying for accommodation or boats. They all have to buy their own boats, most work part time and save hard to be able to afford to travel and sail.

One thing they do have if in common is that all sail a lot. When they are on the steep slope of the learning curve they sail every chance they get and train with whoever is around.

You can throw money at US Sailing but it wont change things. Cultural differences in how dinghy sailing is approached will prevent that change.

The US assumes that they should do well when they do travel to events and when they get rolled downwind by some skinny dude wearing glasses from some country that they have never heard of that probably sounds like Crapastan and is famous in their region for having the best potassium and the cleanest hookers they can not believe it and freak out, often writing in their blog later the usual excuses so many enjoy reading and laughing at. "I went right after a poor start but I wanted to go right anyway but the breeze went left and I rounded in mid fleet and then things went from bad to worse. I got passed by some buck toothed freak downwind who must have been cheating! I tried to take him off the course but he went past anyway. The jury did nothing even though the only way to pass me downwind is by pumping."

Throw as much money at sailing as you like but unless you travel, race and sail full time it will be to no avail, at least in the Laser fleet.

[U20guy2]

I would argue that less than 5% of ANY olympian's hold jobs beyond something related to their sport which case unless they sell their own product they are not pulling down the money to fund their Olympic program. Run through the former olympic gold winners most are stay at home moms or ski bums etc.

The life long professional impact training has on these people is pretty huge. When you give up school for gym time and training it eventually catches up with you. Then you get the very rare athlete that is both fantastic at their sport and a face and personality the media and advertisers just can't get enough of - that is till their clean image is tarnished with say pictures of hitting the bong sends their fast rise into a fast tail spin into a crater.

[U20guy2]

Maybe the question should be WHO in their right mind wants to be an Olympic contender?

The one nice thing about sailing is that even the older dudes and gals can do it if they chose to later in their life. But lets face it your not going to see a Stan Honey deciding to run the 200 during a mid life crisis but you might find Stan racing Stars and putting in a good fight.

[Sloan]

Maybe the question should be WHO in their right mind wants to be an Olympic contender?

Maybe young people who haven't yet had all their dreams taken away. Who with the innocence of youth have no knowledge of what awaits them in the not too distant future; the slow and cruel process of growing ever older and sinking ever closer to the grim pit that has swallowed so much of humanity already.

[Evo]

well that was cheery

[hdglightning]

Never said that the Lightning fleet had gold medal talent.

And there is no issue with it's worlds nor ISAF for the class with regards to international competition.

But that is NOT the discussion...never brought the Lightning fleet into it.

But I have sailed in a number of classes and against (and with) some of the USA's past Olympic competitors. I would say that many of the top guys in several classes could (with little effort) be competitive with the top USA guys in many classes. Women and Men.

I'll use one example...JEff Linton (Jeff is hating me right now lol). He is older now...but I bet that if you put him in a laser for a couple weeks he would be competitive. Give him some time in the Star and he would be right up there. Greg Fisher as well...both have won multiple worlds, NA's, etc. Though frankly neither are in their "prime" for physical classes like the laser or the like, but talent wise they have every bit that our team has.

That is my point though. USSailing needs to reach out to the younger and talented (And winning) sailors in large US classes and get them into boats that need boosting (for example the Finn). Are they better than the current crop? Probably not. But we need to INCREASE the pool so that everyone gets better.

Someone mentioned the AUS success at sailing. Hats off to them! But one thing they have (that the US does not) is a pretty damn deep talent pool. They don't HAVE to go to Europe to compete against the best, they can drive to their local club. THAT makes people better.

Here in the US we simply don't have that. We have an attitude of protection and the like that prevents the up and comers from even showing up. And that is no way to increase our talent pool.

Uh, nothing personal against the lightning fleet, but the talent there isn't on the top olympic level. Hell the US 470 Womens driver was leading worlds in Chile for a couple days, and she had barely sailed the boat. The class has been struggling to keep it's ability to be allowed to hold a worlds because of a lack of international participation. Tito's been a force, but outside of him there's no international talent even in the ballpark of olympic medalists.
1

[Heriberto]

The point of "grass roots" programs is not specifically to produce a pipeline to the Olympics. That may or may not come later. The point is that athletic sports such as sailing (in the Olympics that is) require a "refresh" of athletes every 4-12 years depending on class, fitness, etc. You HAVE to have a pool of new talented people coming up in each area to support this.

To have a pool of say 100 people to pull from, that requires 5000 to distill down. So yes, those Flying Scot people are VERY important. They provide the interest, access, training, and introduction to the sport.

Here is what people forget. To really succeed at say the Olympics you need a HUGE pool of people to pull from. You take that huge pool, and distill it down, again and again and again until you get the top lets say 20. The top 20 end up being the ones who battle for the single spot. But they come from thousands and thousands. Yes there is some luck, yes there is some politics, yes sometimes a really good person just does not get noticed (imagine for say Basketball/NBA...there are millions of awesome players...but only a couple hundred NBA players).

Sailing just does not have the pool, and that pool comes from grass roots programs. Unlike basketball where kids can play on the corner, sailing requires structured programs to feed the pool. We can't also rely on college...because again there is a limited pool and limited outcome there. We need a better program and a better pool.

Right now the pool is small and the talent "while good is limited". They are the best of what we have, and we should be proud of them. But frankly that is not good enough. In almost every class there is VERY little new blood, and even fewer opportunities. Stagnation is BAD. Limited access is BAD. Etc.

If you are serious about Olympic sailing "better" then you have to invest in this in a big way. It is not sufficient to try to pick from the limited people we have right now. It is just not enough and will never compete with the smaller countries (such as the UK) who have a GREAT pipeline and development program.

Agree.

We need(ed) a system like this for the long term. For the short term of two-four years we need to identify and groom talent from the multitude of pools available.

My view is the selection process should be as late as allowable. Rather than focusing resources on optimizing the performance of a team picked early, spend less per capita resources on a larger pool. In most things, exponential effort is required for the last 1% performance increase, if the net isn't cast wide enough to capture the best raw talent, those exponential investment costs are sunk. I'm also very sympathetic to the statement about US sport attitude of "first loser". That is bullshit. We are all improved by competition. Champions learn equally from wins and losses.

[Licorice Stick]

It is obvious the U.S. coaches assumed the U.S. sailors were some of the best, but had no idea how good, consistent, and determined the sailors from the rest of the world could be in the heat of competition. Also, I cannot help but wonder if our sailors knew how to properly tune a boat.

Like a lot of other things in the past decade, a lot of sailing has become the privilege of the 1% or for those upper-upper middle class. I go to the Melges website for news and updates and wonder why I have one of their boats. I sail by myself because time off and expense to regattas in the midwest (or France, or Italy) is simply a fantasy. The manufacturers and clubs have left a lot of interested people and their kids in the cold due to the expense of participating. I wonder how many hotshots are out there and will continue to remain hidden?


(Please excuse my magnificent grasp of the obvious.)

[Sticky Icky]

never brought the Lightning fleet into it.

Uh you brought up Terhune Fisher and Linton, if it's not bringing up the lightning class I don't know what would be,

The Fisher brothers have won a 22 worlds and a lightning worlds combined, Linton 2 lightning worlds, none of those are super competitive internationally, you don't see the AC or med cup pulling people out of those fleets.

And yes the class was under the gun from ISAF because of a lack of nations competing, which is why they've pushed international fleet building.

You think any of those Guys could beat splat in a star over three regattas ha ha ha

Here's a real question, why doesn't someone ask t hutch or hardesty why they didn't do a campaign?

That's 2 relatively young US sailors of the year or whatever they're called, that didn't even put an effort in...

[PeterHuston]

never brought the Lightning fleet into it.

Uh you brought up Terhune Fisher and Linton, if it's not bringing up the lightning class I don't know what would be,

The Fisher brothers have won a 22 worlds and a lightning worlds combined, Linton 2 lightning worlds, none of those are super competitive internationally, you don't see the AC or med cup pulling people out of those fleets.

And yes the class was under the gun from ISAF because of a lack of nations competing, which is why they've pushed international fleet building.

You think any of those Guys could beat splat in a star over three regattas ha ha ha

here's a real question, why doesn't someone ask t hutch why he didn't do a campaign?

The answer to your last question is obvious: Hutch makes more money sailing what he sails than he would doing an Olympic campaign.

As far as the Lightning, the issue isn't about anyone from that class jumping into an Olympic class, or being pulled into the AC, or Med Cup.

Would you think it more worthwhile for a young kid to be sailing against other young kids in a 4Twinkie, or maybe instead with and against the likes of the Starcks, Fishers, Terhune, Lutz ect? Get some experience at an early age with damn good sailors, who are mentors, not overpriced coaches.

Same holds true for lots of other classes - Snipe, 5o5, Thistle, Scows....and probably a few others.

[Sticky Icky]

The answer to your last question is obvious: Hutch makes more money sailing what he sails than he would doing an Olympic campaign.

As far as the Lightning, the issue isn't about anyone from that class jumping into an Olympic class, or being pulled into the AC, or Med Cup.

Would you think it more worthwhile for a young kid to be sailing against other young kids in a 4Twinkie, or maybe instead with and against the likes of the Starcks, Fishers, Terhune, Lutz ect? Get some experience at an early age with damn good sailors, who are mentors, not overpriced coaches.

Same holds true for lots of other classes - Snipe, 5o5, Thistle, Scows....and probably a few others.

I'm not knocking the Lightning fleet at all, I just think some speculation a little wild to not be commented on. And yes it's a great affordable class with huge fleets everywhere... I think if you say took a Fisher or a Linton or a Terhune when they were younger and gave them a path where sailing international boats was feasible who knows what they may have done. Unfortunately in the US the only money is starting your own loft or working for a bigger one, repping sails for classes that americans sail, and which the rest of the world or the olympic games may not so much... or being a bitch on someone's big boat where you go out and race the clock, and probably have nothing to do with tactical situations.

If the answer for Hardesty and Hutch is that obvious, then why is it not so for Hamish Pepper, Ben Ainslie, Robert Schiedt, etc... (which are probably on at least the same if not higher level internationally and also race big boats for money)


Are our sailors too greedy, or does US sailing just fail at providing the support worth our best people taking at least a shot at the olympics?

If I were looking at classes, why don't the 505 guys do a 470 campaign? etc. for other popular classes in the US that are at least similar to olympic boats?

[PeterHuston]

The answer to your last question is obvious: Hutch makes more money sailing what he sails than he would doing an Olympic campaign.

As far as the Lightning, the issue isn't about anyone from that class jumping into an Olympic class, or being pulled into the AC, or Med Cup.

Would you think it more worthwhile for a young kid to be sailing against other young kids in a 4Twinkie, or maybe instead with and against the likes of the Starcks, Fishers, Terhune, Lutz ect? Get some experience at an early age with damn good sailors, who are mentors, not overpriced coaches.

Same holds true for lots of other classes - Snipe, 5o5, Thistle, Scows....and probably a few others.

I'm not knocking the Lightning fleet at all, I just think some speculation a little wild to not be commented on. And yes it's a great affordable class with huge fleets everywhere... I think if you say took a Fisher or a Linton or a Terhune when they were younger and gave them a path where sailing international boats was feasible who knows what they may have done. Unfortunately in the US the only money is starting your own loft or working for a bigger one, repping sails for classes that americans sail, and which the rest of the world or the olympic games may not so much... or being a bitch on someone's big boat where you go out and race the clock, and probably have nothing to do with tactical situations.

If the answer for Hardesty and Hutch is that obvious, then why is it not so for Hamish Pepper, Ben Ainslie, Robert Schiedt, etc... (which are probably on at least the same if not higher level internationally and also race big boats for money)


Are our sailors too greedy, or does US sailing just fail at providing the support worth our best people taking at least a shot at the olympics?

If I were looking at classes, why don't the 505 guys do a 470 campaign? etc. for other popular classes in the US that are at least similar to olympic boats?

i don't really know the details for the foreign guys that do repeated campaigns. Ainslie seems to have a long list of sponsors, not sure about the reality of the others. And I think there is a big cultural difference.

The 5o5 guys...my guess, they love their class, and see no reason to deal with the pain in the ass that is chasing the Olympics from the US.

A big part of the recent problem has been the cultural shift within our NGB. I was around when the organization changed the name from USYRU to US Sailing. The shift became pretty obvious pretty quickly that the organization was not just about racing, and now was about a bunch of things that didn't really matter to racing at all. During the 10 years I went to meetings, you could see the shift in who attended. Instead of Lowell North and Olin Stephens, we had people who were asking for money from the Inshore Cmte (which I was on) so they could attend another meeting and learn about this fascinate sport of sailing, and all the cool learn to sail things US Sailing might do one day. So we end up with President Janet Baxter claiming victory when she gets the url usmotorboating.com for the organization.

Then you have Jim Capron trying for Mandatory Membership, and spending north of $150k on the Farrah Hall debacle...all of which Brenner played a role in.

We can talk about money and how to spend it all we want. But we have to start with leadership. And it ain't gonna come from Tom Hubbell as the next President. Josh Adams was part of this Olympic Cmte that gave us this system and these results, so what's he going to do to fix it? We need to hear from him.

[hdglightning]

Yes I brought up names I know who are competitive with the current US sailors. If you think that any of the three I mentioned cannot give some of the USA team members a run you are kidding. Now would they win in a Finn in 20 kts? Nah. And are they "young enough" to compete at the Olympics? Prob not (well Terhune is...Greg and Jeff are a bit older lol). But Allan himself would say the likes of Hardesty and Hutch (and folks like Horton and Larsen) are both a step higher then he is...yet Allan took his wife and a fat guy (me lol) down to the Etchells Jaguar a couple years ago and went toe to toe with Hardesty's much more experienced crew.

As a note, you mention "pulling into the AC or Med Cup". I know of several Lightning class sailors who are in the AC and Med Cup. you mentioned one, Hutch. Granted he is not sailing there now, but he did in the past. Andy Horton is another who is active in both AC and 52's, and was/is a very active Lightning sailor.

You actually make a point that is the issue. You compare our sailors to the international fleet...stating the "fleet is not very competitive internationally". Who cares? The point is to pick the best USA sailor not the best international sailor. If you can't win at home you can't win elsewhere...and that is where our failing comes. We are willing to look at a top 20 at the worlds as a "win" and place a higher value on it vs a win at home.

The point I am trying to make, and I think you agree with, is that we have talent in the USA that is not pointed at Olympic sailing. We can look at individual sailors and realize that we have talent. You can diminish the talent all you want by saying XYZ class is not "internationally competitive", but we don't need that. We need more domestic competitiveness that will elevate ALL of the top guys. With that the international competitiveness will increase, and the results will come.

Right now the problem is that Olympic classes are considered "not worth it" by 99% of the sailors out there. Clubs don't support them, people don't grow up sailing them, etc. The exception are the laser and the Star...and well the Star is bye bye for 2016 (and considering the cost it is a elite class anyway). USSailing needs to figure out a way to develop talent using the classes and results we DO have in the USA. USSailing needs to increase participation in the Olympic classes at the local level so that there is not just one regatta a year (Miami) but many on a local and national level. And then they need to figure out how to get the talent that DOES exist to transition into these groups so that we don't just have 1 in each class battling for the spot...but we have dozens.

And BTW...before you badmouth the Lightning as non competitive internationally...ask the Horton/Hutch/Larson/etc group if they think the boat has good competition at the worlds and NA's. While the boat is a 3kt shit box (and a heavy one at that) many of these guys give at least a passing reference to their time in the boat and the competitiveness of the fleet.

[Swimsailor]

So I skimmed through the thread and couldn't find anything, but what happened to Philipe Khan's school for olympics sailors? It seems the only answer is a wealthy benefactor wanting to spend the $$ on sending kids to the OG. Imagine if some of that AC funding went to a few teams needing $75k a year for their campaign.

[JimC]

If you can't win at home you can't win elsewhere...and that is where our failing comes.

Think again.
You can win at home and be hopeless internationally.
If you can win internationally you will walk it at home
If you are not up to speed with the latest and best techniques internationally you will be nowhere.

[Mambo Kings]

I find myself wondering if some change should start at the college sailing level in the US.

The US college sailing programs leave little time for other sailing (not a lot of time for academics in some cases either). Nor do they encourage participation and ownership in real one design racing during or after college.

I get the impression that much of GBR college racing is a light hearted affair with events like the Brummy Bender, The Bristol Brew , The London Duck (and do they still wear Black Tie at the Cam Cup dinner?) . Most of the very best college sailors in GBR do their serious racing in their own boats and have time to be regional and national champions.

The other part of a GBR college sailors calendar includes feeder events organized by the RYA.....For example the GBR college calendar included an U20 match racing championships, hosted by the RYA and raced in...yup you guessed it.....Elliot 6Ms - the Olympic match racing class.

How many college All-Americans have won major regattas outside of college sailing? How many actually own their own boat? How many are still racing actively 2 years out of college?

Looking at the RYA feeder events, is it time to make better use of the structure of the US Sailing championships and make them more integrated with youth sailing, with competitive one design sailing and the Olympic pipeline?

[hdglightning]

Jim agreed. No doubt about that.

Tried to say that the current process forces people on the road 100% and does nothing to support or build a local/USA based competitive level. Until we have clubs in every region of USSailing participating in every Olympic class, we will never generate the talent to compete with countries that do have this level of competition in their back yard. By not having a strong domestic program we have a weak international program. There are bright spots, but as a whole the process is flawed.

International experience is critical for success. But so is creating a larger talent pool to pull from. We will not get a stronger talent pool if the only way to even sail in a regatta is to sail overseas.

Now our team has talent, loads of it! Not taking anything away from them on that score. But imagine if every regatta they sailed locally was at a higher "level" than today? Or if match racing was widespread and active in every region/area vs just a few "lucky" ones? etc.

No matter how you look at it, a stronger domestic program and structure benefits everyone. It does not diminish international experience, but it enhances it.

If you can't win at home you can't win elsewhere...and that is where our failing comes.

Think again.
You can win at home and be hopeless internationally.
If you can win internationally you will walk it at home
If you are not up to speed with the latest and best techniques internationally you will be nowhere.

[hdglightning]

Mambo...quite interesting. About 5 years ago I decided to do the USSailing men's championship. I tried to find out the process in my area (C, Chesapeake). Found out that the qualifier here was by "resume". Submitted mine...waited, waited, waited...found out later that I should not have even bothered. Hmmm...interesting. Was supposed to have a regatta in the area as a qualifier but no one really cared enough, so they did it by politics. lol

I do think there is a lot of potential in this, but there is zero support in my area at a local level...and I doubt there is much in other areas.

But I think this is a missed opportunity at USSailing. Why is there no support, or if there is support it is "closed" to 99% of the people? I looked into the match race process...you have to meet a bunch of criteria. Criteria is to sail in match races. Entrance to the match races is by invite. WTF! That makes no sense...(and could have changed since I looked into it several years ago). But IMHO if you have an interested sailor who is willing to commit to the program...they should be allowed to participate. The current process seems to exclude more than include. So people just avoid and move on. Sad really.

And while I think there is benefit to college sailing, I think 99% of the people go away after college. Even if they stay, they most likely cannot afford a boat, or a campaign, or to travel, etc. The target audience for USSailing needs to be the 25-30 year old population. They have disposable income, still athletic/able to compete, and generally do not have the commitments that come up soon later in life. But "youth" is the all in proposition now...which is a losing process in my eyes.

<clip>

Looking at the RYA feeder events, is it time to make better use of the structure of the US Sailing championships and make them more integrated with youth sailing, with competitive one design sailing and the Olympic pipeline?

[Speng]

Lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth about the lack of medals but it's been a long time coming. The article on the front page from the parent of the 49er sailor is particularly insightful. Several rambling points...

(1) of the boats sailed in the Olympics I reckon very few of them are popular classes in the USA. I reckon the 2 Lasers, Star and maybe the Finn have decent classes here. Women's match racing is probably irrelevant as the boat was brand spanking AFAIK and it's more of a discipline rather than a class. Of the others: 49ers, RS-X, 470 our level of class participation is probably minimal. IIRC before the last (2008) Olympics the men's and women's 470 had a single start at the trials because there weren't enough of each sex to warrant separate starts (plus the men were pretty crap). The poses a dilemma: in the former group you expect to have a deep pool of talent and support from the classes while in the second you're trying to grow trees in no soil. Obviously different approaches may be needed.

(2) There are few Olympic class regattas in NA... OK that's true but I reckon that difficulty applies (in some cases more so) to sailors from every continent but Europe but the Aussies dominated the Olympics and I saw quite a few flags near the front from all over the world. Geography is an issue but I doubt it is fundamental...

(3) Regarding the above is the issue of money which must be an issue I reckon. US sailors probably need to spend a ton of time finding money when other countries' sailors supported my Ministries of Sports don't. But (quit yer bitching) regardless of what you might think about your personal financial state generally US Sailors are probably quite wealthy relative to the average USAnian. What have you done and what has US Sailing done to transfer some of that probably tax deductible dosh from you to the Olympic team?

(4) Relative to some of the above points it should be noted that a few of the stalwarts of the US Olympic sailing team in the recent past (think about the Tornado, men's 470 and Star Classes) have been people of some personal means who've been able to support their own programs to some extent but if we expect miscellaneous 20-somethings to be able to self-fund globe-trotting Olympic campaigns then we must be deluded.

(5) Along the lines of funnel some cash to an Olympic hopeful why not hire an Olympic sailor to skipper/tactician your big $$ big boat campaign? I'm sure Ben Ainslie could afford to self fund his Finn sailing (if for some reason Team GBR machine melted away) from all the dosh he makes sailing in AC boats etc. Think about all the other Olympic class sailor you see making their milk and cookies as pro sailors... Oh I forget, we do frown on pro sailors in this country.

(6) I'm sure there's no lack of coaching in this country after all we seem to be exporting them. Why not find the young people who are good enough and have the desire to sail Olympic machines, lump then together in some part of the country where they can sail a lot and train the bejesus out of them and then send them off to compete... but maybe that's liberal thinking.

(7) Regardless of class participation I reckon we have lots of good sailors. think about windsurfing - it's been years since I used to subscribe to the rags - but I do remember that there were a lot of USAnians at the highest level in competitive windsurfing and not just the poncey wave jumping shit but proper racing. I guess we probably still do so no reason not to find some decent RS-X sailors in there.

[AClass USA 230]

In all this discussion, it seems no one is really looking at our successes in the past to see what we did then that is different now. What I am referring to is the success the US had in the late 70's up to the early 90's with sailors like John Bertrand, Cam Lewis, Peter Commette, Stu Neff, Mark Reynolds, Carl and Bill Buchan, Randy Smyth, the McKee brothers, Jay Glaser, Paul Cayard, Craig Healy, Pete Melvin, the Shaddens, the Rosenbergs, Steve Benjamin, Tucker Edmondson, Augie Diaz, Allison Jolly, Lynn Jewell(Shore), and others. In that time period, we probably had the most depth the US has ever had competing in small boat classes (whether keelboat, dinghy, or multihull) both in international and Olympic competition. There were also healthy fleet sizes competing in the US in all of the Olympic classes. What has happened to make that a memory?

There was a time when people sailed in the Olympic classes because they liked the boats and the class, not necessarily because they had a goal to sail in the Olympics. I raced in the 1988 Olympic Trials in the Division II sailboard and in 1996 in the Tornado and in both instances, the people in the class and the events and venues made it fun for everyone whether you were a favorite to win the Trials and sail in the Olympics or whether you were doing a "Corinthian" program and attending the events to support the class. Remember the 1990-1992 Flying Dutchman class that pooled it's resources together as a group and trained and shared together and produced the 1992 silver medalists Paul Forester and Steve Bourdow (and this group followed a similar model that the US Flying Dutchman sailors did in 1980 but unfortunately we did not attend that Olympics)?

Maybe I am naive but I feel like I am semi-qualified from my previous Olympic class sailing experiences to ask why is not possible to create that kind of environment again? Why wouldn't US Sailing try to approach the successful sailors I mentioned above to advise and consult on how we get back to the top of Olympic sailing?

[fastyacht]

I haven't read through the entire thread, so I apologize if someone has already mentioned what I'm about to say.

What aren't we sailing Olympic class boats in our collegiate sailing programs?

The 470 is a POS. It isn't cheap, but it also doesn't last long. It is light weight and all fiberglass--in other words throw away.

Compare to the 505 which, while it does cost $25k new, will last pretty much forever. Lindsay hulls from the early 80s are still competitive.

What goes for the 470 also applies to laser but not quite as bad. They seem to last a little longer than a 470 before going soft. But notice that the laser class is actually really weak in the US. It doesn't really inspire the kids the way it did in my generation. Of course we sailed lasers at age 10!

[fastyacht]

I've hated US sailing for their shitty national championship program, their shitty regionalistic snobbery, and the fact that their youth champs used to be selected on such a bullshit basis

The "national championships" for USYRU were always a joke. You'd read about them in Sailing magazine and then wonder, "why don't we ever hear about this until after it happened?"

Sailing in the U.S. is local, it is fleet-dependent, and for most talented sailors, the imagination is captured by something other than the Olympics and definitely other than USSailing. You want to go win the 505 Worlds, or you want (especially the crop of kids now) to go be on a winning TP52 team, or a J105 or Melges 32 or whatever is the "sport" boat class attracting imagination.

It is really amazing that we had good Olympic results at all in classes other than the Star in the past. But of course when dinghy racing was bigger in this country, we had juniors sailing fireballs--which is perfect training fro 470. You had the 505 fleet essentially supporting the development of both 470 and FD programs--Steve Benjamin did this as I recall. Soling was never as popular as the E22 but then again, there are lots of keelboats that provided a transferrable talent pool...Tornado sailors could train in all the great beach cats. Didn't Smyth and Glaser sail beach cats back in their youth?

Really, the simple problem is really simple: all that is left is dinghies (which are my personal favorite for course racing) but dinghy racing is nearly moribund in the U.S. The difference between today and 1975 is striking.

[fastyacht]

It is obvious the U.S. coaches assumed the U.S. sailors were some of the best, but had no idea how good, consistent, and determined the sailors from the rest of the world could be in the heat of competition. Also, I cannot help but wonder if our sailors knew how to properly tune a boat.

Like a lot of other things in the past decade, a lot of sailing has become the privilege of the 1% or for those upper-upper middle class. I go to the Melges website for news and updates and wonder why I have one of their boats. I sail by myself because time off and expense to regattas in the midwest (or France, or Italy) is simply a fantasy. The manufacturers and clubs have left a lot of interested people and their kids in the cold due to the expense of participating. I wonder how many hotshots are out there and will continue to remain hidden?


(Please excuse my magnificent grasp of the obvious.)

Support dinghy racing. Get a 505. 6 boats with 12 guys, at $5000 apiece into them for used boats, versus what, two Melges 32s on the course, and how many thousands? The question is, how do we inspire the kids today to want to sail a 505? The ones that go for a ride are hooked. We need to take more kids for a ride:-)

[bruno]

Lots of teeth gnashing and hand wringing, why o why can't the greatest sail with the greatest?
A number of people have mentioned the obvious: a lack of adult small boat racers and small boat racing access in NA today relative to the past. Rather than go any further into it,mthere is your answer, within you. Ifmyou dislike the results for the NAmerican (Canadians were part of the picture before and to restore things they (and there have been some good Mexican sailors also) need to be part of it again NAYRU!) Olympic squads then get off your ass and do something about it.

Show up at your yacht club meeting (not just the bar) and ask for adult dinghy facilities, not just junior.
Buy or refurbish a dinghy, put it on the hard, and go sailing, take out others or invite them to race, even informally.
Ask other sailors if they want to Practise, or Train, or Tune, or Bimble, help them with that.
Notify formers racers of current racing, talk it up.
Set an example, go sailing on a Friday night in a dinghy (with or without drink holders) rather crewing for a leadmine and playing the bar hero.
Buy from your local lofts and chandlers who will be there when you need a repair or spare, and who probably have potential racers in their employ.
Set up clinics or group practises where there is shared knowledge and feedback.
Travel to some other clubs to support their dinghy racing, do regionalmor national events.
Have fun with it, avoid the Room, try to wise up the yahoos wothout giving them a face job.

That's it.

[PeterHuston]

This Opti promo-rant on the hard to find front page is amusing. Dude talks about how great the Opti is, about US Opti sailors results, about how all the US Olympic sailing team and coaches were OptiGods at one point in their life.

But yet, if the Opti was so great for training US Olympic sailors, where are the medals in '12?

He says we can't blame the feeder system. Really?






well fed?

I would like to bend a few ears for a minute and put a twist on some comments and theories made lately by several individuals regarding the quality of youth sailors being developed and provided to higher levels of sailing within the United States.

I have been coaching competitive teams including the US Optimist National Team within the optimist class for well over 20 years. The expectations and abilities of coaching over the past 15 years in the United States are of the highest levels in the world. The countries from where these coaches come from are national, global and inclusive. We do that in America..... Always have, it's called freedom. The level of competitive optimist sailing and optimist sailors has only risen to a level greater than any in history.

First I would like to address the US Olympic situation this past summer and the theory that no feeder talent is being developed within US youth sailing. The US olympic team was littered with the best optimist sailors of the past decade. The US optimist class and it's national team developed as youth sailors the entire 49r team, the entire women's 470 team, the Finn sailor, the men's Laser sailor, the woman's Radial sailor, the Star skipper. These are some of the best sailors in the world. I know them, I have coached them. They are amazing athletes and people. I guess the optimist class is not doing a thing. The US Olympic coach squad was also littered with past optimist coaches, also some of the best of the past decade. I hope they did not forget that.

It's easy to blame the feeder. Its the easy way out. Not this time boys, your just not that special. The US Optimist Class gave you talent. Your barking up the wrong tree my friends. Other olympic coaches figured out Weymouth ......... A lot of them were past optimist coaches from around the world as well ........ get real. I'm just saying......

Second I would like to address the kind comments made by Mr. Morgan of New Zealand in regards to his theories of US youth sailing. Sir, I am not sure I have ever met you. I am sure we shall at some point. Please don't judge what you simply do not understand. 2012 was the most impressive showing of US Optimist sailing in history:

US sailors were 1,2,3,5,10,11 at the IODA South American Championships. 1, 2 in team racing. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors were 4, 29, at the Lake Garda Meeting. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors were 1st at the Rizzotti Trophy Team Racing event defeating two Singaporean teams. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors came to your part of the world for the IODA Asian Championships. US sailors were 3, 5, 13, 15. NZL sailors were 12, 14, 19, 22.

US sailors attended the IODA World Championships. US sailors were 7, 9, 13, 22, 23. The team placed 2nd in the team racing portion of the worlds. NZL sailors were 26, 34, 52, 72, 90. The NZL team racing team was eliminated in the third round.

The US coaches that represented each of these teams represented the United States with pride no matter what country they were born. They are US tax paying employees of USODA. They work with private teams, yacht club teams and the US National Team. They do a fantastic job.

Mr. Morgan, a wise man once gave me a great bit of advice. He said, "Son, if you ever find yourself surrounded by people talking deeply about a topic you know very little about, speak less than those around you".

The geography and diversity of the United States and the US Optimist Class make it unlike any other in the world. We have hundreds of sailors attending our class events. Any given weekend you can find dozens of local events nation wide, coast to coast. The class takes pride in developing recreational sailors as well as high level competitors. As I write, the class is approaching sail # 20,000!

It's easy to blame the feeder ........ Not today my friends, simply not today ...

Eric P. Bardes
St. Petersburg FL

08/17/12

[Paddy O]

WOW, what is Mr.Eric P. Bardes on?

John Morgan mentioned Optis maybe once in his article?
And I don't think he was commenting on NZL yachting, so why bag the performance of kiwi kids?
JM was commenting on his own personal coaching experience within the US wasn't he?

Gotta say some of his comments were pretty out there!

Mr Bardes, you seem to have read some attack on opti's that wasn't even there.
Too much sun?

This Opti promo-rant on the hard to find front page is amusing. Dude talks about how great the Opti is, about US Opti sailors results, about how all the US Olympic sailing team and coaches were OptiGods at one point in their life.

But yet, if the Opti was so great for training US Olympic sailors, where are the medals in '12?

He says we can't blame the feeder system. Really?






well fed?

I would like to bend a few ears for a minute and put a twist on some comments and theories made lately by several individuals regarding the quality of youth sailors being developed and provided to higher levels of sailing within the United States.

I have been coaching competitive teams including the US Optimist National Team within the optimist class for well over 20 years. The expectations and abilities of coaching over the past 15 years in the United States are of the highest levels in the world. The countries from where these coaches come from are national, global and inclusive. We do that in America..... Always have, it's called freedom. The level of competitive optimist sailing and optimist sailors has only risen to a level greater than any in history.

First I would like to address the US Olympic situation this past summer and the theory that no feeder talent is being developed within US youth sailing. The US olympic team was littered with the best optimist sailors of the past decade. The US optimist class and it's national team developed as youth sailors the entire 49r team, the entire women's 470 team, the Finn sailor, the men's Laser sailor, the woman's Radial sailor, the Star skipper. These are some of the best sailors in the world. I know them, I have coached them. They are amazing athletes and people. I guess the optimist class is not doing a thing. The US Olympic coach squad was also littered with past optimist coaches, also some of the best of the past decade. I hope they did not forget that.

It's easy to blame the feeder. Its the easy way out. Not this time boys, your just not that special. The US Optimist Class gave you talent. Your barking up the wrong tree my friends. Other olympic coaches figured out Weymouth ......... A lot of them were past optimist coaches from around the world as well ........ get real. I'm just saying......

Second I would like to address the kind comments made by Mr. Morgan of New Zealand in regards to his theories of US youth sailing. Sir, I am not sure I have ever met you. I am sure we shall at some point. Please don't judge what you simply do not understand. 2012 was the most impressive showing of US Optimist sailing in history:

US sailors were 1,2,3,5,10,11 at the IODA South American Championships. 1, 2 in team racing. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors were 4, 29, at the Lake Garda Meeting. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors were 1st at the Rizzotti Trophy Team Racing event defeating two Singaporean teams. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors came to your part of the world for the IODA Asian Championships. US sailors were 3, 5, 13, 15. NZL sailors were 12, 14, 19, 22.

US sailors attended the IODA World Championships. US sailors were 7, 9, 13, 22, 23. The team placed 2nd in the team racing portion of the worlds. NZL sailors were 26, 34, 52, 72, 90. The NZL team racing team was eliminated in the third round.

The US coaches that represented each of these teams represented the United States with pride no matter what country they were born. They are US tax paying employees of USODA. They work with private teams, yacht club teams and the US National Team. They do a fantastic job.

Mr. Morgan, a wise man once gave me a great bit of advice. He said, "Son, if you ever find yourself surrounded by people talking deeply about a topic you know very little about, speak less than those around you".

The geography and diversity of the United States and the US Optimist Class make it unlike any other in the world. We have hundreds of sailors attending our class events. Any given weekend you can find dozens of local events nation wide, coast to coast. The class takes pride in developing recreational sailors as well as high level competitors. As I write, the class is approaching sail # 20,000!

It's easy to blame the feeder ........ Not today my friends, simply not today ...

Eric P. Bardes
St. Petersburg FL

08/17/12

coaches corner
There’s plenty of lamenting over the historic beatdown received by the US Sailing Team in Weymouth, but few insiders have been willing to put their names to the real reasons for our woeful performance. Today, NZ coach John Morgan revved his keyboard up to offer his unfettered opinion. Is he right or wrong?

I am one of the coaches for the NZ men's 49er and the women's 470 teams and have for the past 15 years also been working in the US sailing system with the top juniors.

Having brought 9 of the 12 NZ team members thru from Optis to the Olympic team and having won 17 world titles and over 60 NZ titles. (Plus numerous US national titles) I feel I can accurately give a comparison of the two systems. Here are my thoughts:

US sailors are over coached and seem to spend the entire summer at regattas rather than training. The ratio is 5 training days to 1 competition day.
There is an obvious lack of a tunable boat in the system, too many lasers and look at the US laser results, awful.
The US coaches are lazy and technically very poor, results don't seem to count.
The system is covered in South American coaches who, to fill there own bank accounts have pushed the 24/7 coaching mentality (We started with some Argentino coaches in NZ but quickly got rid of them after seeing the decline in that countries results).
Zero talent identification from US sailing. My sailors have won a whole lot of US titles but not once been approached by US sailing to acknowledge this talent.
Sailing is way too expensive in the US, thus excluding a lot of the hungry, driven athletes, again everyone has their hand out. Regattas have turned into moneymaking exercises by the clubs involved, with a prime example in the Buzzards Bay Regatta, which is hugely expensive to enter and has the worst race management I have ever seen. Why is there a constant fight amongst the clubs involved in this regatta to hold the event? Profit.
The US collegiate system is the best racing in the world but produces debt-ridden sailors who are great sprint racers but need to be retrained for Olympic work as the tuning knowledge just isn’t there.
Most of the US-born coaches are ex-collegiate coaches. Can no one else see the problem here?
Money and covering the athletes with coaches won't help the situation; the problem is in the youth and junior structures.
Obviously the present management and coaches need to go, and those who appointed them need to have a long hard look at themselves in the mirror.

I have a great fondness for the US sailing scene and have had many great experiences over the years, but since I have been in this system, the numbers of sailors have dropped, the coach numbers have increased and the results have declined. Sad.

John Morgan
Morgan Yacht Design

08/10/12

[bruno]

in all fairness, this thread has been shitting all over optis and C420s, if that was my livelihood i might feel a bit nervous and defensive that the parental teat would be removed.

[set321go]

I felt that the counterpoint failed to address the issue in question, that of olympic performance, the critical analysis of US sailing had little to nothing critical to say about the optimists, and also commented that there was large oppie fleet in the states.

[dogwatch]

The US olympic team was littered with the best optimist sailors of the past decade.......The US Olympic coach squad was also littered with past optimist coaches

Eric P. Bardes

A whole lot of littering then.

From what I've seen, intensive coaching of very young sailors is close to guaranteed to have them running away from the sport the moment they have the freedom to do so.

[MB Sailing]

Maybe the question should be WHO in their right mind wants to be an Olympic contender?

Perfect.. After all this stuff about coaches and "leaders" . I've put together my RIO campaign and will be sailing limited regattas in Stars and Lightnings. In addition to near daily sails in my new P 2.4.. But not allot of sailors think I'm in my right mind, anyways. USOC or US Ailing, just let me sail. If I can cover my costs with sponsors, why can't others.
Mark

[racco]

After reading all the post I have to say the follow:

- US has a lot of talented sailors!!!! A lot!!!
The only problem with this is that they are not willing to work hard and do what it takes, to go to the olympics.
You talk about Terhune, Hardesty, Hutch and many other sailors!! They may do good in the olympics, but are they willing to do a campaign? that is the question??
Do you know how many days they train a year? Maybe 50 at the most, not sailing, training
Do you know how many other sailors like them are in the Olympics circuit? Many!!!! The Key is: Are they willing to train as hard as they can to get what they want?

How hard is to do a Olympics campaign? For sure really hard, but again who is welling to spend 200 days a year training and sailing and improving, Do you know how much it takes to perform good at the olympics? At least 200 days of training a year, more talented will need less, less talented will need more.

- Off course that money is important and if you don't have money you will not be able to do a campaign. US Sailing, need to help the sailors, not all the staff that they have(coaches and personal trainers and ........). There is a lot of waste of money there in my opinion. Hiring coaches that even the sailors don't even want.
What they need to focus is to look for sponsor for the US Sailing team, with big companies and so and so, and with the team make some marketing for the companies to return them back in image what they put in money. I never saw any adds on the TV...... and so and so, if you want to say you can say a lot more thing but the idea is to do a constructive critic.

- The Yacht club and the sailing center are the one that need to be feeding the program. Could be with opti at the beginning and then with other sailing boats, wish ever is the boat that they have. The important here is the desire and the willing of the young sailors to do so.
This is a good point to analyze. If you put Australia, New Zealand, England, and USA of condition of sailing, The one that have the most variety of sailing conditions is USA, do they use it?? not are all. Sailors are not use to sail in heavy breeze or adverse condition, like cold water and big waves. Sailors sail only in the summer, normally is light breeze and hot weather not waves (Except San Francisco, Gore or Newport, but who really train there year around?) Also when the winter come, what they do? They go to Miami, again an average of 12 knots unless is a big storm coming. But who really train in the waves.... others will go skiing. I can keep going but I think, everyone get the point. There are not taft sailors able to sail in all type of condition and perform good
If you ask me who is staff in the US Team that went to the olympics, the only one, that was really good train, in my opinion, was Ana, but she can't win by herself, it was a team, and probably the team was not as strong as her.

And to put a little spice on this post, regarding the Argentinian coaches in the Optimist class in USA, I think there are a joke, is kind of a little mafia, everyone thing that there are the best, and there are not even close to that. I know probably 1 or 2 that is an exception, but the rest I really don't know what they do, is like parenting the kids in the regattas. Just go out and check them out, they have around 10 kids and they just seat at the start and anchor they coach boat and wait until all of them are finish. Some of then don't even have binoculars and then when the kids come to them, they talk to them like they have seen everything, don't know how they do that, unless they have some special powers, how they can see what are they doing in the weather mark and so and so....... Please don't be fool not because he was a good opti sailors means that he is a good coach. Find the right coach is hard but you will see the improvement. Of course if the kids are sailing 24/7 you will see an improvement, you can do that just by yourself.

[Delta Blues]

Part 9

U.S. Sailing runs more national championships and regatta feeder and ladders to get to those championships, than Doans has pills. Just how well is U.S. Sailing and their homegrown national championships supporting Olympic classes and Olympic development?
These U.S. Sailing national championships use Olympic Class boats:
USJWSC Laser Radial
USYSC Laser, Laser Radial
USSC Laser

These U.S. Sailing national championships do not use Olympic Class boats:
USRIWKC J22
USJWOC Club 420
USWMRC J22
USOC Navy 44
USTRC Vanguard 15
USYSC Club 420, 29er
USYMC F16
COC C Scows
USSC Byte CII
USMRC Sonars
USMC F16
USJC J22, Club 420, Byte CII

As you can see, the organization in the U.S. in charge of going farther faster higher farther, uses Olympic Class boats in only 21% of the events they run and control. How does this help with development and identifying the up and comers in the 10 Olympic Class boats, where U.S. Sailing only uses 2 of them in their events?

[xyz10000]

WOW, what is Mr.Eric P. Bardes on?

John Morgan mentioned Optis maybe once in his article?
And I don't think he was commenting on NZL yachting, so why bag the performance of kiwi kids?
JM was commenting on his own personal coaching experience within the US wasn't he?

Gotta say some of his comments were pretty out there!

Mr Bardes, you seem to have read some attack on opti's that wasn't even there.
Too much sun?

This Opti promo-rant on the hard to find front page is amusing. Dude talks about how great the Opti is, about US Opti sailors results, about how all the US Olympic sailing team and coaches were OptiGods at one point in their life.

But yet, if the Opti was so great for training US Olympic sailors, where are the medals in '12?

He says we can't blame the feeder system. Really?






well fed?

I would like to bend a few ears for a minute and put a twist on some comments and theories made lately by several individuals regarding the quality of youth sailors being developed and provided to higher levels of sailing within the United States.

I have been coaching competitive teams including the US Optimist National Team within the optimist class for well over 20 years. The expectations and abilities of coaching over the past 15 years in the United States are of the highest levels in the world. The countries from where these coaches come from are national, global and inclusive. We do that in America..... Always have, it's called freedom. The level of competitive optimist sailing and optimist sailors has only risen to a level greater than any in history.

First I would like to address the US Olympic situation this past summer and the theory that no feeder talent is being developed within US youth sailing. The US olympic team was littered with the best optimist sailors of the past decade. The US optimist class and it's national team developed as youth sailors the entire 49r team, the entire women's 470 team, the Finn sailor, the men's Laser sailor, the woman's Radial sailor, the Star skipper. These are some of the best sailors in the world. I know them, I have coached them. They are amazing athletes and people. I guess the optimist class is not doing a thing. The US Olympic coach squad was also littered with past optimist coaches, also some of the best of the past decade. I hope they did not forget that.

It's easy to blame the feeder. Its the easy way out. Not this time boys, your just not that special. The US Optimist Class gave you talent. Your barking up the wrong tree my friends. Other olympic coaches figured out Weymouth ......... A lot of them were past optimist coaches from around the world as well ........ get real. I'm just saying......

Second I would like to address the kind comments made by Mr. Morgan of New Zealand in regards to his theories of US youth sailing. Sir, I am not sure I have ever met you. I am sure we shall at some point. Please don't judge what you simply do not understand. 2012 was the most impressive showing of US Optimist sailing in history:

US sailors were 1,2,3,5,10,11 at the IODA South American Championships. 1, 2 in team racing. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors were 4, 29, at the Lake Garda Meeting. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors were 1st at the Rizzotti Trophy Team Racing event defeating two Singaporean teams. Sorry NZL did not show up.

US sailors came to your part of the world for the IODA Asian Championships. US sailors were 3, 5, 13, 15. NZL sailors were 12, 14, 19, 22.

US sailors attended the IODA World Championships. US sailors were 7, 9, 13, 22, 23. The team placed 2nd in the team racing portion of the worlds. NZL sailors were 26, 34, 52, 72, 90. The NZL team racing team was eliminated in the third round.

The US coaches that represented each of these teams represented the United States with pride no matter what country they were born. They are US tax paying employees of USODA. They work with private teams, yacht club teams and the US National Team. They do a fantastic job.

Mr. Morgan, a wise man once gave me a great bit of advice. He said, "Son, if you ever find yourself surrounded by people talking deeply about a topic you know very little about, speak less than those around you".

The geography and diversity of the United States and the US Optimist Class make it unlike any other in the world. We have hundreds of sailors attending our class events. Any given weekend you can find dozens of local events nation wide, coast to coast. The class takes pride in developing recreational sailors as well as high level competitors. As I write, the class is approaching sail # 20,000!

It's easy to blame the feeder ........ Not today my friends, simply not today ...

Eric P. Bardes
St. Petersburg FL

08/17/12

coaches corner
There's plenty of lamenting over the historic beatdown received by the US Sailing Team in Weymouth, but few insiders have been willing to put their names to the real reasons for our woeful performance. Today, NZ coach John Morgan revved his keyboard up to offer his unfettered opinion. Is he right or wrong?

I am one of the coaches for the NZ men's 49er and the women's 470 teams and have for the past 15 years also been working in the US sailing system with the top juniors.

Having brought 9 of the 12 NZ team members thru from Optis to the Olympic team and having won 17 world titles and over 60 NZ titles. (Plus numerous US national titles) I feel I can accurately give a comparison of the two systems. Here are my thoughts:

US sailors are over coached and seem to spend the entire summer at regattas rather than training. The ratio is 5 training days to 1 competition day.
There is an obvious lack of a tunable boat in the system, too many lasers and look at the US laser results, awful.
The US coaches are lazy and technically very poor, results don't seem to count.
The system is covered in South American coaches who, to fill there own bank accounts have pushed the 24/7 coaching mentality (We started with some Argentino coaches in NZ but quickly got rid of them after seeing the decline in that countries results).
Zero talent identification from US sailing. My sailors have won a whole lot of US titles but not once been approached by US sailing to acknowledge this talent.
Sailing is way too expensive in the US, thus excluding a lot of the hungry, driven athletes, again everyone has their hand out. Regattas have turned into moneymaking exercises by the clubs involved, with a prime example in the Buzzards Bay Regatta, which is hugely expensive to enter and has the worst race management I have ever seen. Why is there a constant fight amongst the clubs involved in this regatta to hold the event? Profit.
The US collegiate system is the best racing in the world but produces debt-ridden sailors who are great sprint racers but need to be retrained for Olympic work as the tuning knowledge just isn't there.
Most of the US-born coaches are ex-collegiate coaches. Can no one else see the problem here?
Money and covering the athletes with coaches won't help the situation; the problem is in the youth and junior structures.
Obviously the present management and coaches need to go, and those who appointed them need to have a long hard look at themselves in the mirror.

I have a great fondness for the US sailing scene and have had many great experiences over the years, but since I have been in this system, the numbers of sailors have dropped, the coach numbers have increased and the results have declined. Sad.

John Morgan
Morgan Yacht Design

08/10/12

Not supporting Morgan here having not only misrepresented himself but also calling the Aussie Gold medalists cheats. tsk tsk

But what planet is Eric P Badass on. Whats the point of kicking the Kiwi kids. Do you even know who they are, what level they are what experience they have. You compare there results against some pretty lame results from your group. Not sure i would be too proud of your results sunshine. You may find these guys are development teams and will be on the world stage in the future. Give them a break.

As for calling someone out for not turning up. Were they invited? Also the Kiwis have to fly from the far side of the world to regattas so they cant afford to go everywhere. Suggest you climb back under your rock.

[Delta Blues]

Part 11
Crunching some of the numbers of the 2012 Olympics

Each country must qualify in each class in order to send a team to the Olympics. It is not automatic. The U.S. qualified in all 10 boats and sent teams for all 10 boats to England. Below I am listing the number of boats a country qualified (I did this with hash marks and interrupted many times, forgive me if I am off a digit here or there) for and what medals were won (G = Gold, S = Silver, B = Bronze):

GBR 10 Boats GSSSS
ESP 10 Boats GG
NZL 10 Boats GS
FRA 10 Boats B
What other countries sent 10 boats and did not medal? GER, USA. Footnote 10 of 30 (1/3) of all medals were won by these 4 countries. This group represents 60 of the total number of all boats.

SWE 9 Boats GB
POL 9 Boats BB
What other countries sent 9 boats and did not medal? CRO, CAN, GRE, ITA. This group represents 54 of the total number of all boats.

AUS 8 Boats GGGS
NED 8 Boats GSB
DEN 8 Boats SB
FIN 8 Boats SB
BRA 8 Boats B
What countries sent 8 boats and did not medal? POR, RUS. This group represents 56 of the total number of all boats.

CHN 7 Boats G
ARG 7 Boats B
What countries sent 7 boats and did not medal? None. This group represents 14 of the total number of all boats.

What countries sent 6 boats and did not medal? NOR, IRL, JPN. This group represents 18 of the total number of all boats.

What countries sent 5 boats and did not medal? EST, AUT, CZE, TUR, UKR, ISR. This group represents 30 of the total number of all boats.

BEL 4 Boats B
What countries sent 4 boats and did not medal? KOR, SLO, CHI, MEX, LTU. This group represents 24 of the total number of all boats.

CYP 3 Boats S
What countries sent 3 boats and did not medal? URU, GUA, HUN, ISV, COL, VEN, THA, SUI. This group represents 27 of the total number of all boats.

What countries sent 2 boats and did not medal? MNE, TRI, TUN, MON, MAS, HKG, BUL, THA, KGZ. This group represents 18 of the total number of all boats.

What countries sent 1 boat and did not medal? BER, BLR, IOA, LCA, PER, COK, SUI, RSA, TPE, EGY. This group represents 10 of the total number of all boats.

Clearly there is strength in numbers, the more boats sent, the more boats medaled. But it is no guarantee to medal. For example, of the 10 boat teams 2/3 of the countries won from 1 to 5 medals. With 60 boats from these countries out of the 311 boats total, or about 19% of all boats.

If we ignore the 3 and 4 boat country medals, it breaks down like this: countries that sent 7 to 10 boats won 93% of the medals with 59% of the total number of boats competing.

[cosmicsedso]

I think I have at least some of the answer to the problems facing US sailing.
Gary Jobson is the head honcho right?
Have you listened to him on the ACWS commentary?
And this guy is in charge?

[gimmee]

An Aussie opinion ...

http://www.mysailing...sa-sailing-team

once again another Australian Website hosts doo dooRags news

Yes DoRag must be shittin bricks when he reads the the results of the Moth Worlds

[DoRag]

An Aussie opinion ...

http://www.mysailing...sa-sailing-team

once again another Australian Website hosts doo dooRags news

Yes DoRag must be shittin bricks when he reads the the results of the Moth Worlds

Yet another vulgar comment by a foreigner.

[Mr. Fixit's brother,, Mr. Fixit]

And so it begins:


From USSailing website


Statement on change in performance leadership





Effective September 18, Kenneth Andreasen has been released from his position of High Performance Director/Head Coach at US Sailing. The decision was announced by Josh Adams, Managing Director of U.S. Olympic Sailing. “After careful consideration, it is clear that we need to take a new direction on the performance side of the Olympic and Paralympic Sailing Program,” said Adams. “That direction will include a sharper focus on the performance development of sailors and classes, boatspeed, and being a technically superior team.”
The following interim plan goes into effect immediately:
• Luther Carpenter will serve as Interim Head Coach. Carpenter, a six-time Games veteran and member of US Sailing’s Olympic coaching staff, will manage the transition with a focus on fall training camps, new class development, and winter/spring planning. He will contribute to the 2013-16 High Performance Plan submitted to the U.S. Olympic Committee and act as a primary contact for sailors and coaches.

• Gary Bodie, who was the organization’s High Performance Director for 10 years through the 2008 Games, will serve as Advisor to U.S. Olympic Sailing. He will advise on the 2013-16 High Performance Plan and in other key areas of the program.
“Kenneth has been committed and dedicated to U.S. Olympic Sailing,” continued Adams. “He deserves credit for, among other things, his emphasis on class teamwork and fitness, positives in our program that we will continue to build on. Kenneth is a consummate pro, and I wish him well in the next step of his career.
“I firmly believe that this new direction is needed and that it requires a new leader at the High Performance Director position. With the veteran presence of Luther and Gary, I’m confident that we’ll keep the program moving ahead while work is done to appoint a new HPD.”

[Tejano]

Bout fucking time, huh?

[Delta Blues]

Bout fucking time, huh?

Putting the cart before the horse. The "Independent" (cough, cough) commission hasn't released their report yet. It seems like a premature ejaculation.

[SC Finnster]

Great to see some new blood.....

[Tcatman]

Great to see some new blood.....

New Blood? Does anybody think that Gary Bodie is part of the solution... He was a flub the last time... Hopefully he fills this caretaker role up to the USSA meeting and then is replaced by true players.

[Delta Blues]

I never got around to summing up the different parts I wrote about in this thread, if anyone is left or cares...............
P1 Since the infrastructure of training in the country from sailing schools, high schools, colleges, Junior Olympics, etc. don't use Olympic Class Boats, it will be a long time before the U.S. gets back up on the podium. The U.S. has dummied down to Optis, Sabots, & 420's for all of its training (a minor exception is the Laser). 470? Finn? 49er? Not until a massive effort is made to put Olympic Class boats under kids butts will there be any competitions occuring.

P2 Fundraising in the U.S. will not change in the foreseeable future. It will remain hand to mouth. Like Brenner or not, that is not my point, I see one metric that he succeeded on. He brought in more dollars than anyone before. It is a fact. I would highly recommend keeping Brenner on the Fundraising side, do not let him go. He has built relationships, those relationships are producing dollars, and as anyone in this business knows, the only way money is fundraised is through relationships.

P3 U.S. Sailing's coffers (1984 Olympic WIndfall) is North of $2M. While it sounds like a lot of money, it is there for now and the future. It must be spent wisely. Buying some RIBs this year for $100,000+ that will probably be worn out in less than 10 years, I am not sure is sound investment planning of this money. This money could easily be squandered in one quadrennium, but what does one do for the next quadrennium? Use the surplus of investment and stay away from the corpus.

P4 U.S. Sailing must grow some sack. The Board does not decide how they want the votes at ISAF to be placed when deciding what Equipment is being selected. They need to make a decision, then stand behind their decision. To keep themselves out of the target of the Olympic Classes, they leave it to Charley Cook (U.S. Rep to ISAF) to do however he sees fit with the votes. Take this power away from Charley, and make a stance for what the U.S. wants.

P5 One must be aware that the financial support varies from country to country. Our Olympians are on their own. Other countries governments pay their athletes, or their government lottery funds their athletes. In better financial times

P6 Kids don't sail with parents anymore. Go to any regatta and all you see is old people. The kids are not there. Fix this so that the kids meet and sail with past Olympians. Get a better mix of old and young at regattas. When kids don't meet Connors, Melges, etc., when kids don't rub their fingers over their gold (silver or bronze) medals, they don't get it that it is tangible and achievable. Connect the old and the young again.

P7 In this rat race, anyone considering an Olympic effort must decide at high school whether to go for it. If they attend college, collect student loans, their choices after college will become limited as they will need a job to pay off those student loans. Also they will be shelving the start of a career for 8 years, they have to consider what is waiting for them for work or career after they make their Olympic run. As this is completely a personal decision, there is nothing to offer, other than good luck!

P8 Yacht Clubs are the backbone of sailboat racing in the U.S. There is a lack of Olympic Classes being sailed at clubs today. Olympic Classes at clubs used to be the rage, Clubs felt honored having them there. Some of the sailors would go to the Olympic Trials, some with the goal to win, others simply wishing for the allyoop and hoping to get lucky to represent their country. Without tons of fleets around, where is the feeder to the Trials coming from? A large effort needs to be built to put Olympic Classes back at yacht clubs.

P9 U.S. Sailing needs to look in the mirror. 3 of their own national events include Lasers. 12 of their national events do not include ANY Olympic classes. The only thing U.S. Sailing does is runs the Miami OCR where the Olympic hopefuls gather. While all of the communications we all get from U.S. Sailing is Olympic This, and Olympic That, they sure don't seem to be putting their money where their mouth is.

P10 U.S. Sailing has been getting people to get the U.S. qualified to be in the Olympics and having Trials to get each type of equipment and sailors to the Olympics. According to the numbers, this is a very good thing. The more classes are represented, the more medals a country wins, on average. Keep this going, do not change this.

P11 U.S. Hopefuls find out pretty quick that they must live in Europe to hone their skills. The vast majority of ISAF Ranked Events where the sailors develop their rankings occur there. The U.S., Canada and Mexico offer very very few ISAF Ranked Events. The cost of living / exchange rate for U.S. to go to Europe adds an additional burdon. The U.S., Canada and Mexico need to develop a plethora of ISAF Ranked Events, so that what dollars are raised by hopefuls are used much more efficiently.

It is not one thing that will cause the U.S. to win medals again, it is a long difficult list of things. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[Tcatman]

I never got around to summing up the different parts I wrote about in this thread, if anyone is left or cares...............
P1 Since the infrastructure of training in the country from sailing schools, high schools, colleges, Junior Olympics, etc. don't use Olympic Class Boats, it will be a long time before the U.S. gets back up on the podium. The U.S. has dummied down to Optis, Sabots, & 420's for all of its training (a minor exception is the Laser). 470? Finn? 49er? Not until a massive effort is made to put Olympic Class boats under kids butts will there be any competitions occuring.

Pt taken... However... I think a focused effort on high performance juniors with records of success is the ticket... The Brits don't have massive Olympic classes dominating that island.... Focus training camps on regional squads could solve the problem.... As you age... your training camps become national... the camps are not exclusively focused on one kind of boat... they focus on skill sets. Till you are actually on a specifc campaign.

P2 Fundraising in the U.S. will not change in the foreseeable future. It will remain hand to mouth. Like Brenner or not, that is not my point, I see one metric that he succeeded on. He brought in more dollars than anyone before. It is a fact. I would highly recommend keeping Brenner on the Fundraising side, do not let him go. He has built relationships, those relationships are producing dollars, and as anyone in this business knows, the only way money is fundraised is through relationships.

True
P3 U.S. Sailing's coffers (1984 Olympic WIndfall) is North of $2M. While it sounds like a lot of money, it is there for now and the future. It must be spent wisely. Buying some RIBs this year for $100,000+ that will probably be worn out in less than 10 years, I am not sure is sound investment planning of this money. This money could easily be squandered in one quadrennium, but what does one do for the next quadrennium? Use the surplus of investment and stay away from the corpus.

P4 U.S. Sailing must grow some sack. The Board does not decide how they want the votes at ISAF to be placed when deciding what Equipment is being selected. They need to make a decision, then stand behind their decision. To keep themselves out of the target of the Olympic Classes, they leave it to Charley Cook (U.S. Rep to ISAF) to do however he sees fit with the votes. Take this power away from Charley, and make a stance for what the U.S. wants.

P5 One must be aware that the financial support varies from country to country. Our Olympians are on their own. Other countries governments pay their athletes, or their government lottery funds their athletes. In better financial times

P6 Kids don't sail with parents anymore. Go to any regatta and all you see is old people. The kids are not there. Fix this so that the kids meet and sail with past Olympians. Get a better mix of old and young at regattas. When kids don't meet Connors, Melges, etc., when kids don't rub their fingers over their gold (silver or bronze) medals, they don't get it that it is tangible and achievable. Connect the old and the young again.

True but not a targeted solution for growing high performing sailors... Match the juniors with focused training WITH High performing adults and young adults in classes that develop core skills. It would be an honor for an accomplished amatuer to be enrolled in such a coaching program in addition to the big names. You need both.... The idea that junior only programs deliver the goods has failed IMO.

P7 In this rat race, anyone considering an Olympic effort must decide at high school whether to go for it. If they attend college, collect student loans, their choices after college will become limited as they will need a job to pay off those student loans. Also they will be shelving the start of a career for 8 years, they have to consider what is waiting for them for work or career after they make their Olympic run. As this is completely a personal decision, there is nothing to offer, other than good luck!

P8 Yacht Clubs are the backbone of sailboat racing in the U.S. There is a lack of Olympic Classes being sailed at clubs today. Olympic Classes at clubs used to be the rage, Clubs felt honored having them there. Some of the sailors would go to the Olympic Trials, some with the goal to win, others simply wishing for the allyoop and hoping to get lucky to represent their country. Without tons of fleets around, where is the feeder to the Trials coming from? A large effort needs to be built to put Olympic Classes back at yacht clubs.

I disagree.... A large effort is simply not going to happen at yacht clubs.. Lasers, skiffs, Multi's, 470s, Kites are not going to suddenly become popular. You need a Focused regional solution that ID's skills and talent and gets those trained high performers to elite training camps that develop skills. Focus is the answer... not big sweeping programs


P9 U.S. Sailing needs to look in the mirror. 3 of their own national events include Lasers. 12 of their national events do not include ANY Olympic classes. The only thing U.S. Sailing does is runs the Miami OCR where the Olympic hopefuls gather. While all of the communications we all get from U.S. Sailing is Olympic This, and Olympic That, they sure don't seem to be putting their money where their mouth is.

They agree... the coach em up after college to get Olympic medal failed... they know the third piece was development and it was weak... Now they have the opportunity to drop the coach em up strategy and really take a look at development.

P10 U.S. Sailing has been getting people to get the U.S. qualified to be in the Olympics and having Trials to get each type of equipment and sailors to the Olympics. According to the numbers, this is a very good thing. The more classes are represented, the more medals a country wins, on average. Keep this going, do not change this.

P11 U.S. Hopefuls find out pretty quick that they must live in Europe to hone their skills. The vast majority of ISAF Ranked Events where the sailors develop their rankings occur there. The U.S., Canada and Mexico offer very very few ISAF Ranked Events. The cost of living / exchange rate for U.S. to go to Europe adds an additional burdon. The U.S., Canada and Mexico need to develop a plethora of ISAF Ranked Events, so that what dollars are raised by hopefuls are used much more efficiently.
I disagree ... creating events is a solution assuming you have a big base of the pyramid... that is not going to happen.... what you need is training camps with lots of talent at the camps... The problem is boat speed and instincts... If you can get the talent together and pushing each other... you don't have to search it out at ISAF events in the eu... or rump isaf events in North America.


It s not one thing that will cause the U.S. to win medals again, it is a long difficult list of things. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[fastyacht]

"A large effort needs to be built to put Olympic Classes back at yacht clubs."

Yes, but 470? Really? And Finn? Really? And 49er? Maybe the latter one sparks some imagination at least. I just don't see how the 470 is going to get "interesting" to a broad level of sailors...

But I really like your overall writeup. Very thoughtful, thorough and organized. And most of the points resonate with me.

I think as far as "Olympic Class Sailing" goes at yacht clubs, we have a fundamental divergence. Dinghy participation has dropped at an even higher rate than sailing participation as a whole, yet the olympics just officially became completely dinghy focused.

Promoting the 470 isn't going to spark interest in dinghies. The boat is not durable, costs a lot even so, and that is a poor investment. Look at the dinghies and near dinghies that are still active: Thistle, Lighting, Snipe, 505 (to name some especially vibrant ones). All of these boats are essentially "permanent" rather than "throwaway." The 505 manages this by being made of high performance laminates while still retaining a minimum weight based on molded plywood. (Fiberglass 505s die just as do fiberglass 470s).

Getting dinghy sailing back on its feet is, in my opinion, more important than any specific olympic class initiative. Encourage growth in existing active classes, embrace a few of the good new classes, (the latter needed to bring in the sailors who are not inspired by lightinngs, or snipes but perhaps drool over vipers or Melges 24s...)

With broader dinghy racing across ages, across clubs, then you will build the olympic sailor pool. Like in the old days. Sail a fireball, sail a 470, not so terribly different. Sail a 505, you can go to a 470 too. Etc.

Of course this may be wishful thinking. Maybe Americans simply aren't interested in trapezing any longer. So in that case, lobby to put 'sportboats" in the olympics...