SCUTTLEBUTT No. 657 - September 29, 2000

HIGH PERFORMANCE

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LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON (leweck@earthlink.net)
Letters selected to be printed are edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude unfounded speculation or personal attacks. This is not a chat room - you only get one letter per subject, so give it your best shot and don't whine if others disagree.

-- From John Sherwood - I have been sailing a Star on the U.S. East Coast for the past six years and have noticed the increase in coaches at events like the North Americans (Galesville, MD - 1995), various Bacardi Cups, and the Worlds in Annapolis this year. With national teams from many countries, Olympic competitors/aspirants and other major players, coaches were especially present at the latter event. I observe that a coach in a high speed tender provides a competitor with some special advantages - at little or no cost if part of a national team:

- High speed tow in/out, meaning probably one hour less time spent on the water, in the sun. etc.
- Food and drink so competitor can sail with less.
- Spare parts, tools, alternative sails. (The Canadian coach boat carried a spare mast.)
- Weather updates.
- Race course scouting reports: wind and current early in the morning, upon arriving in the race area, and just before the start.
- Strategic/tactical advice based on the above.
- Tailored debriefing after/between races.
- Communication with shore.
- Morale boosting.

As an average "uncoached" competitor I find the presence of coaches a bit intimidating, seeming to create a "them" and "us" feeling. It had never occurred to me to go this route, but I can see where it helps.

-- From Karen Furst (edited to our 250-word limit) - If the goal of publishing Peter Isler's comments about the percentage of women participating in sailing was to stir up comments - in my case it worked.

In April at the Annapolis NOOD, I was the only woman owner-driver in the J-30 class participating in this regatta. And I sailed with a crew of men. Most boats in the class would not have met the suggested ratio of 60/40, yet in my opinion very few (if any) of the boats intentionally exclude women from their crew. When the J-30 class was modifying the class rule on crew weight they determined that the average weight of a J-30 sailor was 180 pounds - does this sound like the average woman that you see racing?

Sailing provides a level playing field with respect to gender - suggesting a one-design rule that mandates a minimum percentage of women on a boat completely undermines this premise. I wouldn't want to be on a boat as part of an affirmative action plan.

The reason I believe this sport provides a level playing field is because you can choose a boat that suits your size. Someone once told me that I was a foot too short and a hundred pounds shy of the desired crew weight for their boat. If you want to see more women racing try taking a look at some of the smaller boats where people might consider light crew an asset.

-- From Libby Johnson McKee (edited to our 250-word limit) - Keeping teenage women interested in sailing is a big challenge. At our yacht club, we lose girls in high school to other well coached, organized sports affliated with their schools. Most of these sports don't require transportation away from school to get to practice and frankly, sailing for girls, is not as "cool" as other sports that their friends are doing. Girls at that age usually want to be part of a group and the sailing we offer requires an individual effort (Laser or Byte). There is some double handed sailing but not much. Organization, fun and the team aspect would keep more girls (and more boys) involved in sailing in High school.

I would like to see the Olympics take a positive step in encouraging women at the highest levels of the sport by creating mixed classes. I applaud the choice of women's match racing. We could go one step futher. I would like to see the 470 and 49er classes be mandated men and women. This would instantly make increase the number of women in Olympic sailing and increase the skill level of those women currently on the national level.

Sailing is one of the few sports where men and women can compete as a team and I think we should lead in this area. As far as the other "open" classes are concerned, let's get real and either define them Men's, Women's or Mixed. Let's play the strength of our sport and mandate some mixed classes.

-- From Donald T Bedford - Pedro is right on about women sailors. Growing up in San Diego, many of the girls at our yacht club would consistently beat me around the course. Then in Collegiate, many of them turned off of sailing or crewed. The woman's fleets in College were great and helped to foster great competition as well as the best parties.

I doubt that having a mandated male-to-female ratio is the answer. I do know that our Snipe Fleet in Mission Bay and the Snipe Class in general is doing a great deal to promote women's racing. This includes a Women's Circuit in So. Cal., Women's Nationals and Women's Worlds. The Worlds in Italy had four US teams joining in for a 30-boat regatta.

Most importantly, our regattas are organized by women, for women with "boat boys" supporting, running clinics and bring cold beers to the dock. OK, so we now have a little competition in our sailing families for who drives the boat for the weekend, but hey, that's how our class got the motto of "serious sailing - serious fun!"

-- From Mikkel Thommessen, Oslo - I read with interest your various letters suggesting Olympic classes and disciplines. The introduction of team races is interesting and think it would do great for the media interest in our sport. However my consern is the scoring system used in every fleet race championship (including the Olympics). For press and spectators it is hard to understand a sport where the overall winner may not even participate in the last race of a regatta. That along with a complicated set of rules that allow participants to protest each other and effectively delay publication of results will discourage public interest in sailing. There is a lot to learn from match sailing in that respect. One the water judging and the winner of the last race wins the regatta.

Let me make a suggestion: Sail fleet race for the normal number of races, then select the top three boats for a final where the first team to win two (or three) races is the winner of the regatta. We tried this during LotusCup, a regatta for 49ers in Norway this year. The spectators loved it, it was great for TV and we heard no complaints from the sailors who were all of world class.

-- From Robin Baker - I agree with Jesse Deupree's ('Butt 655) comments about auto racing and sailing. What we have here is a question of control. That is, for whom is our sport going to be run, for us (the participants) or for professionals? Make no mistake about it, this is a question of control of our destinies as sailors. We, the amateur participants, need to retain control and, to the extent we have lost it, take it back.

PODIUM FINISH
(470 Silver Medalist Bob Merrick, looks reflectively at his successful campaign with skipper Paul Foerster. Here's an excerpt from his story on the SailNet website.)

It may be an over simplification, but at this point, trying as hard as you can all the time seems to be the key to doing well. In our class at least-Men's 470-the teams that have finished well are the teams that have been able to slug it out when the chips are down. All the best teams have had mark roundings in the 20s, but the teams at the top have been able to grind back consistently through the fleet and turn the race into a top-10 or low-teen score. On Sunday, the Portuguese found this out the hard way. After finishing 25th and 16th that day, they dropped from second to sixth overall.

When you are back in the pack, the temptation to wing it out to a corner and hope for some luck is far too strong. This strategy, however, almost never works. At this level, everyone else on the course is too well in tune with what's going on to miss some big shift that you may catch by luck. Fortunately Paul and I have been able to do our share of successfully slugging it out in the pack and we've managed to stay in the hunt. The first race of the regatta was one of those races. We did two 720s at the weather mark and rounded the second mark almost in last. At this point you have to think to yourself that you can't change the past so you just race from where you are. We finished eighth that race and managed to save our throw-outs for later and it made a big difference as things turned out. - Bob Merrick, Sailnet website

Full story: http://www.sailnet.com/collections/learningtosail/index.cfm?articleid=merric 0016&tfr=fp

STERLING MOM
(Scuttlebutt carried this story from the Quokka website when it originally ran last June. But Quokka thought it was appropriate to post it again, and we do too.)

A year before the Olympic Trials for the 470 selection, JJ Isler was not in physical shape to sail. At that time, in fall 1998, the pre-trials were being held on Tampa Bay, and most women vying for the 470 slot were nursing their egos and psyches and boats and gear toward an Olympic Team selection. Isler was nursing her new baby.

Isler did not compete in the pre-trials, but she traveled from California to Florida with crew Pease Glaser to observe the wind conditions and the competition. She brought 2-month-old Megan along and rode a crashboat in from the racecourse every few hours to breastfeed her daughter. With an infant to care for, mental preparation was all she could manage.

Two months after the pre-trials, Isler (age 36) and Glaser (38) resumed their on-the-water training. They decided to campaign together in '97, after having raced against each other for nearly two decades - first in college and later in 470s. Their Olympic quest began as casual dock talk at a women's match-race event in Florida, but when they got home to Southern California, they called each other for a reality check.

"We decided to pull the boat out of the box and go sailing for a few days. We both got into that boat and realized, 'Oooooh, this boat is reeeeeally small,'" said the statuesque Glaser, whose last try for an Olympic berth was in 1996 on the longer, much beamier Tornado. But shortly after they decided to push forward to the Trials, Isler got some unexpected news: She was pregnant with her second child. Olympic training would have to wait. - Cynthia Goss, for Quokka Sports

Full story: http://www.quokkasailing.com/stories/06/SLQ__0607_s_isler_WFC.html

CURMUDGEON'S COMMENT: JJ and Pease won the Silver medal Wednesday. Good on ya! And good on Paul Foerster and Bob Merrick who also took the silver. It was a great day for Team USA.

PROTECTOR BAY
Yes, Baywatch is using a Protector as their new rescue boat, but the rumors are false about a spin-off TV show in SF. People aptly named the turning basin behind the StFYC during Big Boat Series, Protector Bay. With friends and wives and girlfriends and data analyzers all onboard, Protectors were out everyday day blasting up an