The Pope gets vital support for World Sailing Presidential nomination

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 14 Sep 2016 The Presidential election for World Sailing will be a controversial affair with the injection of former ISAF President Paul Henderson (CAN) onto the ballot paper.

Sail-World understands that Henderson has received the support from the required five national authorities, necessary to validate his nomination.

Missing from that coterie of support are the two North American MNA's (member national authorities), USA and his native Canada.

Always a polarising figure on any issue in sailing, Henderson doesn't do consensus, which has been the mantra of the world body since he left the Presidency after serving an eight-year term in 2004.

His entry into the Presidential election comes on the back of a controversial announcement by the World body of a restructuring of the Sailing World Cup competition. The new format takes the World Cup out of the Southern Hemisphere completely and keeps the European and USA legs. Japan is substituted for the Asian spot previously allocated to Qingdao, China, the 2008 Olympic venue.

Henderson's nomination also comes at the end of a difficult four years for World Sailing, which has had three CEO's in the period, suffered the controversy of the exclusion of Israeli sailors from Worlds staged in Muslim countries - the Youth Worlds instance in Malaysia proved to be endemic in several world championship and Olympic qualifier events. The vexed issue of pollution at the 2016 Olympic venue in Guanabara Bay attracted world news headlines for three years with the world body seemingly stunned in the headlights of the surrounding publicity. To its, or the organisers' credit, the issue was almost completely resolved for the Olympic regatta. However, the PR stigma will remain in the minds of many.



In the past four years, the World body also officiated over the exclusion of Sailing as a sport from the 2020 Paralympic calendar, largely as a result of poor governance. Again an issue which has been subsequently addressed, but only after the wheelchairs had bolted.

It was under Henderson that World Sailing, then the International Sailing Federation, at least got a reasonable working relationship with various America's Cup organisers, with Henderson negotiating an arrangement with Sir Peter Blake to at least get some payment for ISAF race officials and a substantial fee for the world body. That was an issue which his predecessors had stood by for many years, claiming their hands were tied.

The controversial Canadian plumber also ripped up the racing rule book, replacing a set of sailing rules that had become virtually unintelligible to all but professional match racers. The sailing rules were replaced with a simplified version aimed at club and amateur sailors rather than designed for the needs of professionals and their coaches who were reluctant to throw away their match racing play-books.

He also took ISAF into the world of the Internet believing that Sailing was a sport made for the web. While Sailing does not do well in TV assessments compared to other sports - rating amongst the least watched and at the higher end of the production scale - it does rate highly compared to other sports in New Media.

In contrast to the disciples of the consensus approach adopted after his departure, Henderson delighted in taking head-on what he believed to be the issues of the sport.

Henderson variously describes himself as 'a plumber from Toronto' or 'the Pope' depending on the company he is with at the time. Latterly he has been signing himself as 'A Sailor' - a reference to the fact that he currently holds no official office in the sport.

The fact that Henderson did not receive nomination support in 2016 from Canada or the USA, and probably does not expect it from the powerhouse nations of sailing, will be of little concern to the former Olympic sailor who was a member of the Canadian Olympic team at 1964, 1968, 1972 and 1980 Olympics.

His nomination was not supported by the ISAF hierarchy in November 1996, but Henderson was able to muster support from the smaller countries on the Council floor to beat the favourite of the European power bloc.

Since leaving ISAF, Henderson retained an involvement in the International Olympic Committee, including being part of the 2012 Olympic Bids Commission.

He injected himself back into the affairs of ISAF after the 2013 America's Cup supporting suspended Oracle Team USA sailor Dirk de Ridder (NED) who took his suspension from the sport to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, getting his suspension effectively reduced to time served prior to the Hearing.

Incumbent President Carlo Croce (ITA), son of former President Beppe Croce, will also be standing for a second four-year term, and a sitting President has never been previously unseated.

However, regardless of the Presidential election outcome, Henderson has now secured a platform for his views and questioning of the policies and direction of the world governing body of sailing.