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SCUTTLEBUTT #361 - July 16, 1999GUEST EDITORIAL -- Paul Henderson, President ISAFBefore 1989 Sailing did not allow advertising on Racing Boats. Initiated by the America's Cup Challengers, ISAF (IYRU) addressed the issue of allowing Sailing to enter the modern World of Sport Marketing where desired by the sailors. Heavy opposition was received then from the United States who basically wanted no advertising but were specifically against any such commercialism outside of the Hulls. Led by the Kiwis, Aussies and Scandinavians sponsorship was allowed in 1989 as the advocates said it was the only way they could compete against the wealth of countries like the USA, Germany, UK. Advertising was allowed with many compromises and great predictions of the destruction of traditional Sailing. Deja vu. After a decade, sponsorship has become common place and the ISAF Regulations needed to be reworked to meet the now needs of the sailors. ISAF being the World Governing Body for Sailing took on this very difficult task led by the ExecCom for their 130 Member National Authorities (MNA). It should be known that changes must go through a process which has submissions published 8 weeks before debate in November which if passed come into effect March 1 which is after the Southern Hemisphere season and before the North begins. It takes a minimum of 1 year after full disclosure of an ISAF policy intention. This procedure effects several Codes: Advertising, Eligibility, Medical, and Sailors Classification. It is the Racing Rules that can only be changed every 4 years. With the constant changes in the Doping Regulations, for example, yearly changes in these Codes are inevitable and this must remain with the ISAF Council and not the Racing Rules Committee. Fortunately with modern communications tools, all sailors can be totally informed of any ISAF policy proposals and they have been for 5 years now through www.sailing.org. As for publishing the Codes in the Racing Rule Book any Member National Authority (MNA) can publish whatever they want in their edition as information to sailors. ISAF will publish Codes as appendices in the ISAF Rule Book version. ISAF made a fundamental policy decision last November which was that: "The degree of advertising a Boat can sail with should rest with the Sailor!!!". This was overwhelmingly supported last November including the US Sailing (USSA) delegates. It was on this basic tenet that the New Advertising Code was based. Many of the policy issues were settled last November and published with a few issues remaining that have now been addressed and the final wording will be put together by the "legal" volunteers to be submitted in September. to all 130 MNAs and over 60 ISAF Classes for ratification to come into effect March 1, 2000. ExecCom concepts will be put forward in the prescribed way as submissions. It is very positive to note that many of the ISAF Classes are asking: "Why wait!" The following are the major points: Overview: The sailors decide which Category they want to compete in either through their collective class if so organized or through their MNA. Categories: "A" - No advertising. All boats are automatically in this category unless they choose otherwise. "C" - Advertising Allowed. A Class can choose to restrict this Category. (Hulls only or 1 per sail if they wish or let it all hang out.). Jurisdictions: National Classes: Class decides by vote of sailors. MNA could say they will only accept certain limitations to accept a class as National as they do in many other areas. If a MNA wants to say Hulls Only for National Classes they can do so. Handicap Racers: Due to confusion over whether these are classes this jurisdiction is left to the MNA of the organizing authority and these MNA's must face this responsibility. Class boats sailing under a Handicap Rule come under the Rule not the Class Rule. ISAF Classes: Totally left to the sailors of all ISAF Class to decide to what level they want to allow advertising. Olympic Classes: Must be complete Category "C" for Class Events. Special Events: Complete Category "C" administered by ISAF. The following are the only ones listed: Volvo Ocean Race, America's Cup, Trans-Oceanic, Around-the-World Races. Other Prestige Events may apply for this category if approved by ISAF Council. Fee only payable to ISAF for the Boats which sail under this jurisdiction. Fees: ISAF has totally waved all Catagory "C" fees payable to ISAF for all but the boats which compete in Special Events as listed. A MNA has the right to charge sailors a fee if they so wish. (If a sailor gets a levy address the issue to your MNA not ISAF.) License: MNAs may initiate a license system if they wish and many for years have for any boat carrying any advertising. ISAF will not and never has. Entry Fees: ISAF has no jurisdiction over what an Event charges the sailor except for ISAF Events. Club Events: A club on application to their MNA can ask to be an Invitational Club Event and therefore limit advertising but not if it is a designated ISAF Class Event. ISAF is sure that this system is a major step forward into what is reality in today's commercial World while at the same time protecting those sailors who wish to compete in a traditional Corinthian manner. The choice is left to the sailors where ISAF thinks it should be. ISAF trusts that this clears the air with regard to the ISAF policy proposed for the future. A LETTER FROM OLIN J. STEPHENS The contrasting comments generated by the Krazy K matter suggest some very confused thinking about the application of rating rules to the sport of sailing. As a sport, sailing should be, and generally is done for pleasure and fun. Racing is part of that fun and spreads over a wide spectrum of types, including extreme informality, as between any two boats that are out there, or races sailed on week day evenings, contrasting with the highly organized formal international and grand prix events. There are many steps between, each calling for treatment to suit the spirit of the participants. As that spirit differs within a group friction develops. Rules are made "to level the playing field" as affected by boat speed either by the use of one- design classes or by corrected times which may be based on either performance or measurement or a combination of both. For informal racing the measurement must be simple and inexpensive, yielding only approximations of speed. When casual racing becomes serious, leading to specially built boats, it is easy for designers to beat the simple rule. In consequence, when the stakes are high the rating rules must cover a large number of parameters and include provisions to control surprise designs. With complete measurement and few loopholes the boats become evenly matched, yet the administrators must have the power to deal with the unexpected. Like all games sailboat racing is organized within boundaries set by rules. The advent of professionalism has not lessened the need for such rules. Having lived as a yacht designer, though long retired, I have had a long time interest in rating rules and have come to realize that the prediction of speed is a very difficult problem but one that must be pursued and formulated for the good of the sport. Existing rules cannot be perfect but progress is being made. The inevitable element of luck is part of the game. The high stakes of international competition demand full rule compliance and enforcement. COMFORTABLE Comfort is not a word most people associate with foul weather gear. PITY because the new Gill gear is truly comfortable. It's comfortable because it breathes; comfortable because it fits; and comfortable because it keeps you warm and dry. Even the price is comfortable. And there is the comfort that comes with knowing it carries with a lifetime guarantee. Check it out: http://www.douglasgill.com CMAC COWES, ISLE OF WIGHT, JULY 14, 1999--Lifted by a strong performance by the Mumm 36 Ciao Baby, the United States team moved up to second place in the international series after the second day of short course racing today. The Corum Trophy for the best team performance of the day went to the US Team. Chris Larson, Ciao Baby's helmsman, from Annapolis, MD, celebrated his 33rd birthday today with a bravura performance. He led a world class fleet of eight Mumm 36 one-designs around every mark in two races to win by big margins. Matt Whitaker's Ciao Baby, from Houston, Texas won both races today. It was helmsman Chris Larson's 33rd birthday. Larson, from Annapolis, Maryland, said: "My birthday didn't start too well today. My first phone call was from Matt Whitaker, saying that he had a broken knee and couldn't sail. We were lucky and we were able to replace Matt with Ed Adams from Newport, RI, Ed's our team weather expert but he's also a world class one design and offshore sailor. We didn't have to shift any positions on the boat. He just took Matt's place. The big boat in the US Team, George David's Idler from Hartford, CT, finished the day with a second and a fifth place. The helmsman Ken Read, from Newport, RI, shook his head and said: "It's not easy racing in that part of the Solent. It is shallow, tidal and there are big wind shifts. It's like sailing on the River Charles in Boston if you added three and a half knots of current, with all those wind eddies and shifts coming off the buildings." Helmsman Steve Benjamin, from South Norwalk, Connecticut is steering Bob Towse's Sydney 40 Blue Yankee Pride from Stamford Connecticut. They posted points today of 3.5 and six. "This was our best day to date," Benjamin said. "We are steadily improving. We're real happy with our boat speed. Now we need to be a little more consistent with our crew work. We know what we did wrong, and we know we made good recoveries," Benjamin said. "Now we're looking forward to the distance races where we can put all our preparation work into practice." The next race of the eight race series is the middle distance race for the Royal Yacht Squadron Trophy to be sailed in the English Channel. The race starts Friday at 1:45 PM and is expected to last about 40 hours. -- Keith Taylor Results Day 2 (with team points per race and total low points): 1. Great Britain (7-10-14-9), 40 2. USA (16-11-6.5-12), 45.5 3. Netherlands (5-16-14-12), 47 4. Germany (16-11-13-10), 50 4. Europe (15-13-15-9), 52 5. Italy (16-18-11.5-12), 57.5 4. Australia (15-13-18-22), 68 6. Commonwealth (18-19-16-24), 77 Regular CMAC updates can be found on: http://mummadmiralscup.org or http://ussailing.org/offshoreteams/ac TRANSPAC That was the word Transpacific Yacht Race communicators had been waiting to hear for 16 days, and it finally came at Thursday morning's daily roll call. The tiny two-man boat from Long Beach, sailed by Bill Boyd and Scott Atwood of Alamitos Bay Yacht Club, reported that it had a broken rudder but was proceeding under sail at 5.2 knots, 262 miles from the Diamond Head finish line. It was expected to finish at about 7:30 a.m. HST Saturday. At 25 feet, the B25 sloop is the smallest boat ever to race in the Transpac. -- Rich Roberts Event website: http://www.transpacificyc.org THE LONG AND THE SHORT OF IT While the double-handed Vapor is only 25 feet long, the spinnaker poles on Transpac racer Goodwill were 72 feet long and it took and a crew of 47 sailed her across the Pacific. -- Matt Jones LETTERS TO THE CURMUDGEON Letters selected to be printed are routinely edited for clarity, space (250 words max) or to exclude personal attacks. -- From Peter Huston -- Bruce Narin describes several changes to the sport which the likes of Leweck, Altman, Henderson, Huston and plenty of others have put forth as "socialism". While I know Leweck very well, Henderson and Altman reasonably well, I'm not sure I could pinpoint their political beliefs, but "socialism" is hardly my political ideology. To me, "socialism" is what happens after a great day of racing sailboats, whether it's racing on boats with training wheels attached to their used sails, or rating credits for bad starts. Rather, I perceive any suggested changes made by the aforementioned as a further democratization of the sport - let various governing bodies set up a wide array of tools that help to define the terms of competition for the widely divergent interests within the sport, and then let those widely divergent interests use those tools as they best see fit for their own groups purposes. The Narin version of the sport seems to be based on a winner-take-all, Darin-was-right only term of competition. That has been the "dictatorial" norm for too long, and it seems that the results have been less than spectacular relative to "growing the sport". Plenty of people enjoy casual racing of a standard other than cut-throat competition, and those forms of racing ought to be encourage to grow with supportive tools. I'll bet the "socialism" at the end of those races is more enjoyable for more people with a broader spectrum of the general population participating than what is found at the end of the day in the "pro" environment. -- Rick Hatch, Vancouver, BC -- The officials in the ORC should have looked at the bigger picture before instructing the Chief Measurer of the R.O.R.C. to withdraw the boat's certificate. Now, with the withdrawal of the French team, the ORC has seriously and very regrettably risked any future sponsorship of the Admiral's Cup and the future of the regatta itself. I don't blame the International Jury for its inability to accept the application before it (to re-instate Krazy K-Yote Two's original rating). The Jury could only apply the rules governing the authority of the ORC which the Jury was confined to interpreting in the circumstances. And I can hardly blame the French for withdrawing. You might be pretty non-plussed yourself if you were faced with an essentially last minute rating change to your boat just before a major regatta. I would have thought, after the 1988 "America's Cup fiasco in San Diego" and ensuing actions in the courts of the State of New York, that our sport had learned something. Let the sailors resolve the competition on the water instead of through procedural posturing ashore before the opening ceremonies! The actions of the ORC remind me of the thankfully dead IOR and its distorted hull forms which produced slower boats. No wonder the mainstream of competitive keelboat racing has shunned IMS and gone into one design offshore classes. Were some people in the ORC and the R.O.R.C. really that worried the French might actually win the Admiral's Cup this year or what? Big deal! -- From Dobbs Davis -- While I'm very concerned about the ISAF's attempts to tap into any potential source of income that sailors or organizers fight hard to help fund their programs, I wanted to echo Mark Michaelsen's comments in 'Butt #359 about the general negative bias US Sailing has had about sponsored sailing in this country. What's so bad about a sailor (or organizer, for that matter), whether Grand Prix or not, being enterprising enough to get a few bucks to support their efforts? We all know how expensive this game is, and how hard it is to get sponsorship monies due to its lack of exposure here in the US. Yet without acknowledging some alternate sources of income, it will certainly not grow beyond its current image of being a leisure activity for the wealthy elite. -- From Bud Stratton -- I have a few comments in regards to the ISAF advertising code - I have never owned a boat that as commanded enough public attention to warrent any company advertising on my sails. Many of us that own boats also own companys and through advertising we could write off some of our sailing expenses. It is doubtful that any advertising I did on my own boat would benefit my company but it would go a long way in defraying the costs of sailing. Most racing in my area is PHRF Catagory A and to advertise I would have to purchase an additional set of sails for the occasional Catagory B race. That is not going to happen. To charge a fee for advertising does only one thing. It either cuts into any tax benefit gained or completly eliminates the concept. I say quit trying to sqeeze a rock and leave us to get back some of what we invest in compaigning a boat. -- From Dan Nowlan (In response to Robert Bethune's remarks) -- Although the ISAF Events Committee recommended that the effective date of the Advertising Code coincide with the new rules (i.e., 2001), the ISAF Council voted, with 7 opposed, to adopt a January 1, 2000 implementation date. This is reflected in the Council minutes, and Appendix 2 to those minutes. It was also stated, but not recorded, at the Council meeting that the Advertising Code would be published in the ISAF Regulations, not the racing rule book. -- From Mike Guccione -- Americap is dead in Southern California. It makes little difference whether you like it or not, it can not be implemented into club races. The average club race has 35 to 50 entries you can not offer two classes of Americap and three classes of PHRF and two one design classes and have a race. I think adding the time on time aspect of Americap to PHRF is the only way you are going to see any part of Americap in racing. You can debate it all you want but you can not implement Americap into club racing without dropping PHRF. AMERICA'S CUP Hewlett-Packard Company today announced that it will be the exclusive medical-products sponsor for AmericaOne, the St. Francis Yacht Club's challenger for the America's Cup 2000 in New Zealand. This agreement will provide HP Heartstream ForeRunner automatic external defibrillators (AEDs) to the AmericaOne tender through the finals of the sailboat race for America's Cup in New Zealand in March 2000. The ForeRunner AED is one of the newest high-tech lifesaving devices and is used to deliver defibrillation treatment to victims of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA). - Gina von Esmarch AUCKLAND UPDATE (Reprinted with permission from DEFENCE 2000, which is available for US $48 per year from John@roake.gen.nz) * New Zealand's major Sunday paper, The Star Times, devoted a front page story to "The New York Yacht Club and their pathetic attempts to spy on Team New Zealand, both on and off the water."A dossier of evidence is being compiled with the end result that New York could well expect to be in breach of Cup regulations, something that we believe would hardly raise a New York eyebrow - after all they are past masters at bending, breaking, amending and ignoring fair play in the past - a group that is obsessed and determined to take the Cup back to New York, regardless of how that is achieved. Defence 2000 found the report, as did most Kiwis, very disturbing. Every time the black boats have gone out on the water in the last two months, they have been shadowed by a New York Yacht Club's chase boat. The Americans say that their chase boat is "Only monitoring local conditions and adhering to protocol." Who on earth do they think they are kidding? Russell Coutts is on record as saying, "If we don't go out, they don't go out. If we come in late, they come in late. If we come in early, they do exactly the same." Meantime, a Young America attempt to defuse the matter has only added to the suspicion surrounding the situation. It is to be hoped that when Steve Connett, the chase boat's driver, returns to New Zealand (he left on the day Team New Zealand called a halt to Gulf exercises for the next month), his bosses have come to the conclusion that Kiwis do not accept the New York interpretation of what is fair play. Then just maybe (as could be expected), they are not the least concerned about the well tarnished New York Yacht Club name from many previous defender series. RESPONSE FROM YOUNG AMERICA: "Rules on intelligence gathering are contained in the Protocol, the overall set of special rules and conditions for AC2000. These rules were actually written by TNZ and promulgated in early 1995. The following are excerpts from Article 15 of the Protocol titled "Reconnaissance" (the text of the complete Article is available upon request). Specifically permitted acts include, but are not limited to: - the visual observation, photography, and video taping of another syndicate's yacht from a surface vessel operated in a safe manner provided the observations are made from a distance of at least 200 meters The observing syndicate must clearly identify the observing vessel with the syndicate's name or known flag. Specifically prohibited are:
The penalty for failing to comply with this rule shall be decided by the America's Cup Arbitration Panel." The NYYC/Young America Challenge is adhering to these rules as outlined in Article 15. Observation on the water is akin to scouting in other major sports and is an acknowledged part of learning about the competition. In fact, very similar rules were in effect for the 1995 Cup and helped all the competitors get on with their jobs while avoiding conflict. Just as other Cup teams observe Young America activities, our team observes their activities. Our team members are under strict orders to adhere to the rules. To date, Team New Zealand has never contacted us to express any concerns they have regarding our activities in New Zealand. We only learned of their concerns from the Star Times. We don't understand why TNZ should be making public complaints about us, and several other competitors carrying on activities that are routine in many sports and are perfectly legal under TNZ's own guidelines, the Protocol. This is not the only instance of TNZ complaining through the local press about various teams' reconnaissance and scouting activities. More disturbing, it was only last December that TNZ escalated the situation beyond complaints in the press when one of their support craft ran into the Japanese team's reconnaissance boat. Over the next eight months all the Cup competitors will be living, training, and testing in close proximity in Auckland. Tensions may run high at times. But direct dialogue between competitors is the best way to resolve issues and present a better America's Cup to our fans." -- Jane Eagleson, Director of Public Relations, the NYYC/Young America Challenge THE CURMUDGEON'S COUNSEL Support bacteria - it's the only culture some people have. |
