Living in the Scuttlebutt World

by Craig Leweck, Scuttlebutt Sailing News
It is lost on me how the World Sailing Awards that recognize competitive achievement are not synched with the year in which they celebrate it. In short, when the finalists for the 2024 awards were revealed, the America’s Cup missed the cut.

When World Sailing closed nominations for its annual awards on September 30, their deadline became a celebration of events under the federation’s control, which in this case mostly occurred at the Paris 2024 Olympics. Sorry Team New Zealand, your win came too late.

However, I did find it interesting that World Sailing changed how the award winners would be decided. They previously stated how a public vote would select the winners, but now report how the public vote will make up 50% of the final decisions with 50% contributed by World Sailing’s expert panel.

As much as I hope the World Sailing panel can balance the public madness, as the national sailing federations are already campaigning for their candidate(s), I have already voiced my doubt at their qualifications. Remember, Italy’s Marco Gradoni, at 15 years of age, was crowned the 2019 Rolex World Sailor of the Year from the support of the massive Optimist Class.

Speaking of the America’s Cup, I am grateful the best of 13 series did not go the distance as I was able to cancel my ESPN+ account before the next monthly charge on October 22. More so, I no longer will hear Team New Zealand CEO Grant Dalton say how he provided a free-to-air broadcast. It wasn’t free in the USA.

With all the quirks associated with the America’s Cup, it remains a very big deal for media around the world. No other event in sailing fills the internet at the same level, and as hard as SailGP is trying to be the ‘next best thing’, their thrills and spills format can’t (yet) beat history. The oldest and still active international competition has clout!

Before the fifth season of SailGP gets underway on November 23, my attention will be held by the 40 skippers that start the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race on November 10. This event in the 60-foot IMOCA is otherworldly, and the boats have gotten faster since Armel Le Cléac’h set the course record in 2017 of 74 days 03 hours 35 minutes 46 seconds.

That’s a lot of days to avoid obstacles, without proper lookout, at blazing speed, with foils promoting lift-off, and hard landings testing the limits of competitor and craft. The 2020-21 edition had 25 of the 33 starters complete the course, with the final finisher arriving after nearly 117 days. This race is some kind of madness, and I look forward to it all.