What's Right (or Wrong) with US Sailing?

[Roller Skates]

Here's your chance to get on the board of directors and change things. Got this email today:

The Sailor Athlete Council (SAC) is currently seeking self-nominations of eligible sailor athletes to serve as a Sailor-Athlete Elected Director on the US Sailing Board of Directors. As a registered 10-Year or 10-Year-Plus athlete, you are eligible to vote and run in the election. Self-nominations are due Friday, September 23, 2022 at 11:59 PST. Sailor-Athlete Elected Directors are responsible for ensuring the communication of athlete voices and perspective within US Sailing. Sailor-Athlete Directors are expected to attend US Sailing Board of Directors meetings and share the sailor-athlete perspective, actively participate in Board working groups and task forces to ensure the athlete voice is present, and work with the SAC to ensure athletes are represented appropriately in all committees of US Sailing. Sailor-Athlete Elected Directors must qualify as either a “10-Year” or “10-Year-Plus” athlete and must be a current member of US Sailing. More details about the position and eligibility can be found in the attached job description.

The SAC invites interested persons to self-nominate by submitting the following form: https://forms.gle/i5PkPFi85h8mgA8NA

Need to register as a Sailor Athlete? (free to members) https://www.ussailing.org/about/our-organization/get-involved/sailor-athlete/
FYI Sailor athlete includes a lot more than olympians, and seems to focus on including active racers who participate. I'm certainly no olympian.

 

[Mambo Kings]

Here's your chance to get on the board of directors and change things. Got this email today:

The Sailor Athlete Council (SAC) is currently seeking self-nominations of eligible sailor athletes to serve as a Sailor-Athlete Elected Director on the US Sailing Board of Directors. As a registered 10-Year or 10-Year-Plus athlete, you are eligible to vote and run in the election. Self-nominations are due Friday, September 23, 2022 at 11:59 PST. Sailor-Athlete Elected Directors are responsible for ensuring the communication of athlete voices and perspective within US Sailing. Sailor-Athlete Directors are expected to attend US Sailing Board of Directors meetings and share the sailor-athlete perspective, actively participate in Board working groups and task forces to ensure the athlete voice is present, and work with the SAC to ensure athletes are represented appropriately in all committees of US Sailing. Sailor-Athlete Elected Directors must qualify as either a “10-Year” or “10-Year-Plus” athlete and must be a current member of US Sailing. More details about the position and eligibility can be found in the attached job description.

The SAC invites interested persons to self-nominate by submitting the following form: https://forms.gle/i5PkPFi85h8mgA8NA

Need to register as a Sailor Athlete? (free to members) https://www.ussailing.org/about/our-organization/get-involved/sailor-athlete/
FYI Sailor athlete includes a lot more than olympians, and seems to focus on including active racers who participate. I'm certainly no olympian.

I am a registered Sailor Athlete, but I am not the right person for the job.

In order to become a sailor athlete you have to do well in an Olympic Class or a World Sailing international class.
They also introduced some offshore categories which I know very little about..

 

[Monkey]

This is actually kind of funny. I don’t remember getting a single thing in the mail all year, but now that my membership is almost expired, I seem to get a letter every week reminding me. No thanks. Meanwhile, this weekend will be my third weekend in a row, for three totally different organizations, running races. I truly enjoy helping put on races, but still refuse to pay for the privilege to volunteer.

 

[MR.CLEAN]

I wrote on Page 3 about 3/4 of the way down how US Sailing used to be, responding to the sailors in the sport.

What happened, what is it today?

First the USOC went through a shake up, some employee theft, corruption, etc. Got cleaned up by a sailor and they downsized their Board of Directors.

US Sailing thought they should downsize too. They turned it over to a Doctor. The bylaws were created in the image of a Doctor who does no wrong, and who is not to be questioned. He ignored all input and designed the organization himself. Seriously.

This turned the organization upside down, where ideas now come from the top and are pushed down to the bottom. Where staff no longer executed the wishes of the sailors, but created what they wanted the sailors to do. Simultaneously the world of non-profits changed where bloated staffs and over-sized salaries quickly became the norm.

The great phrase that came out of Watergate - "Follow the money."
Looking at the 2020 IRS-990 (tax return for US Sailing):
Income around $9M (this is a mixture of Olympic Sailing and US Sailing revenue)
Contributions and Grants $4.3M
Programs and Services $5M
Expenses
Salaries and Benefits $4.3M
Individual Salaries
CEO (what used to be called "Executive Director) $252,000
CFO $85,000
CTO $133,000
Performance Manager $108,000
Olympic Head Coach $148,000
USST Performance Analyst $136,000
Chief Marketing Officer $146,000
Director ODP $117,000
Travel $449,000
Of course, there are many more over $100,000, these are the ones that were listed.

What do sailors get for the above listed managers and Olympic staff with a combined salary of $1.1M? I'll wait for you answer for what these 8 people do for you.

What transpired in this evolution, is good things for sailing were pushed aside by Profit Centers. They ditched the things the sailors brought forward with no supported income and have been focusing on what brings in money to pay for this staff.

Simple example - Sailing World Magazine used to own the Safety at Sea Seminars. They paid the expenses out of the magazine subscriptions. The day US Sailing took it over, it immediately added a $50 per head fee to go to US Sailing's coffers. This is not about whether the seminars are good or bad, it is simply a statement how these were turned into a profit center. I do not know what the per head fee is today, this is at least 15 year old information.

You wonder why the Board is so incestuous? Why they pick their own to keep it going? It is the Doctor's wishes that he does no wrong and will continue to make the organization in his vision.

When Gary Jobson was incoming President, we had a 20 minute call as he was gathering ideas from sailors. My biggest comment was, "Be sure the one thing you don't do is to advance the Doctor any further than he has destroyed the organization already." The next President after Gary was the Doctor.

You write like Gary wasn't part of the problem, Glenn, though certainly things were off the rails by the time Capron was in power and Gary did nothing to help. Which one of the below actually made progress in the right direction? I can't recall one of them making a positive contribution to the sport or the future of the org, though Muldoon's and Rosekrans' tenure was before I paid any attention to the issues.

• 2018-present Cory Sertl.
• 2015-18 Bruce J. Burton.
• 2012-15 Thomas Hubbell.
• 2010-12 Gary A. Jobson.
• 2007-09 James B. Capron.
• 2004-06 Janet C. Baxter.
• 2001-03 David Rosekrans.
• 1998-2001 James P. Muldoon

 

[Glenn McCarthy]

It did take multiple presidencies to set the stage for the Dr. Barney Rubble takeover. No disagreement here.

 

[[email protected]]

Why'd they get rid of the stickers? was always a fun way to identify other sailors in random parking lots, etc.

 

[boyscout]

Right or wrong depends on your interests, perspective and experience.

Basically, they suck. It used to be a pretty well run organization to support yacht racing. Now it’s the AAA of sailing.

I don’t see evidence of them doing anything particularly well.

What did they do before to support racing that is no longer happening? I'm asking because I don't know any difference regarding the organization. I started racing in 1999.

 

[sunseeker]

What did they do before to support racing that is no longer happening? I'm asking because I don't know any difference regarding the organization. I started racing in 1999.

Like was said upthread, it is the fact there is now zero representation from the bottom up. Things like the one design class council suffer, because of the fact the representative and committee structure was done away with, it is harder for groups like the odcc to get together and work on common problems. And the fact the organization's primary focus is selling training certificates and books.

 

[Monkey]

Why'd they get rid of the stickers? was always a fun way to identify other sailors in random parking lots, etc.

I know it’s silly, but I completely agree!

 

[FlyingCircus2]

I hardly know us sailing exists, and that's how I like it. It's pretty handy to have a national (global?) Set of rules for bouy racing, so there's no fuck ups from "house rules".

As for the direction of sailing in general, I think any organization powerful enough to influence that would be big enough to get in the way of my enjoyment of my hobby.

Humans have been sailing like 10,000 years. It's a more universal human trait than writing. It might even be *the* thing that defines the transition to modern homo sapiens. People keep getting born who have the itch, so I am sure sailing will stick around.