My sport has been ruined

The sport has been doing a lot of evolving, and as elite events seek to build a viewership, sailing is looking a lot less like what most sailors do. Or did.

From the immortal refrain yelled by anchorman Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network, “I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this any more”, this rant comes from David Evans in the United Kingdom:

No one is remotely interested in Sailing at the Olympics or America’s Cup or SailGP, Even the Vendee Globe has lost most of its meaning with radio-controlled, computer-driven things (can’t dignify them as yachts).

I could not name one competitor in any of the Olympics sailing events since the 1988 Games in Korea. As for the America’s Cup and the rest, it’s just silly stuff and not sport in any way.

All this nonsense about sailors being athletes… no! They are sailors. There is a huge amount more art and science in sailing than a broadcast camera can ever see, and the idiot commentators will ever know about.

Having raced all my life, and began racing over 70 years ago this year (and still learning), I totally despair at the way my sport has been ruined.

When they (and I have no idea how they got to do this, or who selected them) introduced simple Windward Leeward Courses, Double Windward Marks, Alternative Leeward Marks, were any actual sailors consulted, were we asked to vote on it! Of course not!

And when they keep changing the Racing Rules of Sailing, I ask myself why? The rules about luffing overtaking boats downwind are just plan complex, ambiguous and….. I could go on! Everyone understood mast abeam, etc so why change it?

The trouble is they are confusing a lifetime sport, and almost a way of life, with the FIFA World Cup Final.