Why no aussies in the olympics?

The Bar Karate sailing podcast team interviewed John Bertrand post the recent Olympics. He embraced the Finn being dropped from the Olympics and said it would thrive as a non-Olympic class. His analogy was the Americas cup where the current AC is far more exciting than when he was involved all those years ago. He saw the introduction of the foiling classes at the Olympics as a very positive move. His view is the Olympic competition is against events like skating. His view is that Esports at the Olympics is just around the corner. Being one design, successful windfoiling will need the amount of resources that only government funding or very wealthy organisations can provide. I'm sure you've seen photos of RSX sailors like Tom Squires with huge numbers of fins, masts & sails. Thomas Goyard is a French naval officer. His naval duties are to win a sailing medal for France. The one design race is on. Earlier this year, one national organisation bought 50 x starboard 900 front wings to determine variability & find the best ones. This is aside from the budget for travel, athletes & coaches pay, transport of gear & so on. It's very hard to compete against that as a privateer.

Select to expand quote

regal1 said..
The Bar Karate sailing podcast team interviewed John Bertrand post the recent Olympics. He embraced the Finn being dropped from the Olympics and said it would thrive as a non-Olympic class. His analogy was the Americas cup where the current AC is far more exciting than when he was involved all those years ago. He saw the introduction of the foiling classes at the Olympics as a very positive move. His view is the Olympic competition is against events like skating. His view is that Esports at the Olympics is just around the corner. Being one design, successful windfoiling will need the amount of resources that only government funding or very wealthy organisations can provide. I'm sure you've seen photos of RSX sailors like Tom Squires with huge numbers of fins, masts & sails. Thomas Goyard is a French naval officer. His naval duties are to win a sailing medal for France. The one design race is on. Earlier this year, one national organisation bought 50 x starboard 900 front wings to determine variability & find the best ones. This is aside from the budget for travel, athletes & coaches pay, transport of gear & so on. It's very hard to compete against that as a privateer.

Yep, it will be interesting to see how going Olympic affects windfoiling. As you say, the amount of money thrown around changes everything. Even in the strict ODs like the Laser, there are almost no sailors left in the 18-35 year age bracket, because those guys have to sail against the Olympians and they tend to just drop out, and move back in when they can compete in Masters racing.

With great respect to Bertrand, he's a great sailor and seemed to be a good guy the only time we sailed together, but the facts as demonstrated by the actual participation in classes don't bear his argument out. The AC may be more exciting to many (not all) people but it also gets about one third as many entries as it used to. None of the foiling boat classes are particularly popular apart from the Moth's annual get-togethers in England and at the worlds. Considering the amount thrown at promoting them, they haven't really attracted many people. Foiling boards are a different matter but even the foiling windsurfers are less popular than windsurfing was at its peak, so you can read the history both ways.

If sailing's Olympic competition is a fairly cheap sport like skating, which you can do around your own suburb a lot of the time, then why are we promoting incredibly expensive classes that only really work in open water? Most of the sailing in places like England, the USA and Germany is in light winds and/or small waterways where foilers don't work. It's utterly different to skating, which is accessible.

JB's own career shows that even legends like him didn't go always go for the fastest boats, but for the cheaper ones which were more popular and accessible. His international sailing started in Finns, not in International Canoes which were much faster. He then went on to IOR boats, not multis which were much faster. Around the same time he sailed Solings, not Tornado cats or skiffs. Then he got into 12s, not IOR boats or the offshore multis, and now he sails Etchells rather than sportsboats or multis. Being involved in the industry can give you a very warped view of what the average sailor, not the big spenders who are your main customers, actually want.

Select to expand quote

Chris 249 said..

RichardG said..

fjdoug said..

It is sad the Finn was removed from the Olympics as it was the heavier sailors class, relatively speaking. I believe the class itself has been removed on the basis the Laser is the singlehanded class and to allow the entry of mens and women's kiteboarding and the 470 separate for men and women was also dropped making way for a mixed 470 skipper and crew in the future. Over the past 70 years the Finn class has produced some of the most prominent legends in the sport. Many sailors who have passed through the Finn Class ended up changing the world. How many of these sailors would have made it through to the top echelons of the sport in the way that they did, without the iconic Finn to learn from? It has produced world-class sailors and world-class leaders and businessmen because of the discipline and dedication required from an Olympic campaign. Just ask people like John Bertrand (Australian version and also the US version), Russell Coutts, Iain Percy and Ben Ainslie. Paul Elvstrom too but sadly we can't ask him. As a matter of interest is there a Laser analysis from the GBR manual as well ?

It is a great class, but Coutts' autobiography gives more credit to Lasers, which is of course the class where Ainslie also came from. Other legends like Ashby, Slingsby, Conner, Cammas, Burling, Lange etc didn't sail Finns much if at all, so it's certainly not the main breeder of top sailors. The dedication required for any Olympic class is surely fairly similar.

I must admit, despite its historic importance I've lost sympathy for the Finn class because of their political games. In their early days, when boats were supplied by OIympic organisers, the Finnsters claimed that strict one designs were the only true test of a sailor. Later, when the Laser came along, they reversed their claims and said that a class with looser rules was the only true test of a sailor. Years ago when it was pointed out that the class didn't really allow for lightweights, guys like Elvstrom basically said "who cares, if you're light you're a loser" as did the Star sailors. Later, but only when it suited them, both classes started saying that the Olympics had to cater for sailors of all weights - something they had ignored and derided while it suited them.

Incidentally the legendary Elvstrom started to say the Finn should be out of the Games because of its age in about 1965, and he designed a much faster trapeze powered boat to try to replace it later in the '60s.

But allowing the kiteboarders into the Games seems a dodgy idea, considering that there are so few of them who actually race. The overwhelming majority of racing sailors sail yachts and conventional dinghies - types that are now only represented in the Olympics by the Lasers and 470s. It's as if all Olympic cycling was on streamlined teardrop recumbents or the streamlined MTB that hit 223 kmh on a groomed ski slope, instead of of fairly conventional and accessible bikes.

Australian Sailing wants even tiny inland dinghy clubs or the many clubs that sail only yachts, to pay exhorbitant fees to AS. Why should the mainstream sailors pay anything to an organisation that doesn't want to see mainstream sailing represented at the main events?

Chris, Thanks for sharing this information and the broader spectrum of what actually is going on with the Finn. As to the Elvstrom Finn replacement I understood the Bob Miller (Ben Lexcen) designed International Contender with Trapeze was selected in 1967, during trials, as a potential Olympic successor to the Finn dinghy. However the Finn was retained despite that. This year classes had to go to make way for kiters so the Finn and the 470 were on the chopping block and a mixed 470 is the idea to encourage lady sailors and mixed sport. I wonder if a light lady skipper and a tall male to pump on the trapeze might be the optimal combination there but who knows what will happen there in 470 and there are many possibilities. As to your last question it is a good one and Olympic sailing does not represent the majority of sailors but I suppose it never did and never will. It seems driven by TV rights and audience friendly exciting sports, having said that not always easy until recently to find the sports you want to watch although the 7 coverage was excellent this year with its live streaming multiple events so much more accessible than before.Thanks again.

Select to expand quote

RichardG said..

Chris, Thanks for sharing this information and the broader spectrum of what actually is going on with the Finn. As to the Elvstrom Finn replacement I understood the Bob Miller (Ben Lexcen) designed International Contender with Trapeze was selected in 1967, during trials, as a potential Olympic successor to the Finn dinghy. However the Finn was retained despite that. This year classes had to go to make way for kiters so the Finn and the 470 were on the chopping block and a mixed 470 is the idea to encourage lady sailors and mixed sport. I wonder if a light lady skipper and a tall male to pump on the trapeze might be the optimal combination there but who knows what will happen there in 470 and there are many possibilities. As to your last question it is a good one and Olympic sailing does not represent the majority of sailors but I suppose it never did and never will. It seems driven by TV rights and audience friendly exciting sports, having said that not always easy until recently to find the sports you want to watch although the 7 coverage was excellent this year with its live streaming multiple events so much more accessible than before.Thanks again.

Cheers. Olympic sailing got fairly close to representing the mainstream of sailors from about 1976 (when the 470 and Tornado came along) to about 1996. It may not be surprising that sailing was at its strongest from the time the 470 and Tornado were selected, until the late '90s when the time World Sailing started selecting Olympic classes that didn't represent popular areas of the sport, starting off with the 49er and match racing. They confidently claimed that selecting these classes would cause widespread interest, but it didn't. The foiling cat hasn't encouraged widespread interest in foiling cats. Even the 49er, a good boat with its own feeder class in the form of the 29er, hasn't caused widespread interest in skiffs; overseas they remain a small niche. The same with the RSX - it didn't cause any widespread interest in hybrids apart from one feeder class.

Dinghy sailing history, and the relationship between the classes and the popularity of the sport, has been almost completely left unexamined. In fact, the whole question of the relationship between design and technology in sport and popularity has been largely ignored. I've spent a lot of time looking into it, including exploring the trials that chose the Contender, for my blog at sailcraftblog.wordpress.com/

Select to expand quote

cammd said..
Great blog Chris, just read the intro now I am looking forward to reading it all.

Yes Chris, Cammd is right, the blog is really impressive and it is clear a lot of work and research has gone into it.Thanks.