Is the popularity of solo classes making sailing unpopular?

William Nixon for Ireland’s Afloat magazine follows that catchy headline with this report on how focusing too much on the pointy end can hurt:

The Olympic authorities see the Laser as the floating equivalent of the pole-vaulter’s vaulting pole, thereby making Laser sailors into proper individual athletes, and very worthy of Olympic inclusion.

But meanwhile, some in the upper echelons of Olympic decision-making see two-person boats as being group-operated machines, thereby precluding double sailors from serious consideration as true Olympic athletes unless it’s with a boat that is a gymnastic challenge in itself. Step forward the 49er.

As for three-person boats….forget it. This would be all well and good were the Olympics in a self-contained bubble. But the reality is that it is the Olympic imprimatur which brings sailing more effectively to public attention than any other branch of the sport – and we don’t exclude the America’s Cup from that grouping.

Thus the glorification of solo dinghy sailing as the ultimate ideal of sailing sport has trickled through to become the accepted group-think in much of sailing, and there are indications that this tough-minded attitude – one thinks of the Spartans leaving newborn babies on the hillside overnight as a quick and convenient selection process to weed out the weak – is really off-putting for shy and mildly introverted kids.

They like the idea of going sailing, but are put off by the general gung-ho attitude of the more competitive helms, and the possible sense of loneliness in being sent forth solo alone in an Optimist. For this provides all the challenges of being alone, while at the same time having your efforts conspicuously on display in front of one of the toughest-minded bunch of kids in the country.

The huge national Optimist fleet in Ireland is a force of nature, while – as several clubs have discovered – the International Optimist Dinghy Association of Ireland is so powerful and effective it can function successfully more or less as a law unto itself. And the fact of the matter is that when the demanding Optimist system of encouraging rising talent works, it works very well indeed.

But we’d be kidding ourselves if we tried to pretend that it isn’t ultimately elitist, and inevitably causes the elevation of individual talent at the expense of a team approach. – Full report