World Sailing - Henderson sets out foundations of his President bid
by Sail-World.com on 25 Sep 2016
Paul Henderson (right) is seeking another trick at the wheel of World Sailing SW
Paul Henderson is standing for another term as President to get some significant and vital issues facing Sailing addressed by sailors with their input both individually and via their International Class Associations.
Henderson sets out below what he believes will be the foundations of his next Presidency.
To MNA’s, and Concerned Sailors:
I believe that if you are asking sailors to vote for you to lead their sport it is essential to describe the foundation on which one will put forward concepts which will be the basis for how one will govern. Here is what I believe and in the next few weeks I will address various issues and asking that constructive suggestions from all concerned sailors be forthcoming.
The foundation of Sailboat racing is based on Sailing Clubs, Yacht Clubs, Local Regattas, Race Weeks, International Class Championships and exciting events like the Volvo Ocean Race, Vendee Globe, Sydney Hobart Race, America’s Cup and many other such events worldwide. Sailing is a participatory sport that you can be involved in all your life and have participated in like me from 8 to 80 years old.
If one looks at the successful sporting events like Wimbledon, Melbourne Grand Prix, Master’s Golf, etc. they are all held at the same time each year in the same place and in Sailings case usually fostered by local enthusiasts out of their Clubs. It is essential that the focus is returned to these traditional regattas. Sponsors like repetitive events and that is why we must encourage these events in Sailing.
The State of Victoria Governor at the Melbourne 1999 Joint World Championship announced what a significant tourist event it was as 5000 sailors and friends arrived, paid their own way, stayed for two weeks in the hotels, ate at the restaurants and generally helped their economy.
Sailing is a unique sport and really can not be compared to any other sport. What other sport can you buy an International Class Boat and show up on the starting line and for a few seconds be equal to the World Champion? In the past I sailed in regattas with 108 Star boats on the starting line or 100 Finns or about the same in the FD or Soling. World Sailing must encourage open entry regattas and sailors race for the whole week and are not sent home after 3 days of the 5. With 140 MNA’s, to limit the entries to only 20 is very restrictive and does nothing to promote the camaraderie and fraternity of sailboat racing.
Many have said that Sailing is a pyramid with the Olympic Games at the pinnacle. I believe competitive Sailing is the Himalayan Mountains with many challenging peaks to climb all important. Sailing is a bottom up sport not a top down dictatorship trying to be ruled in all aspects by World Sailing.
Several theoretical concepts have been introduced over the last few years with the intention of making Sailing more TV friendly. These must be now analysed to see if they have achieved their goals which I am not convinced they have and we must look for the next shift in the wind with this generation’s use of tablets and smart phones and the need for instantaneous information. Sailing could be adapted for these modern innovations.
There is a fixation these days on getting more and more money into World Sailing.
Let me state that I believe that World Sailing has enough money and should focus on promoting and supporting the foundations on which Sailing was built which is a service to sailors protecting the rights of those who go to sea to race sail boats.
In the next weeks I will address specific issues like “governance”, Olympic Games, and various costs of our beloved sport of Sailing.
Paul Henderson’s Olympic Sailing career began in 1964, representing Canada in the Finn and Flying Dutchman classes at three Olympic regattas.
He’d previously competed in International 14’s in the Prince of Wales Cup. He moved on to become the Technical Delegate for four Olympics from 1984 to 1996 for the body now known as World Sailing. He went on to serve a 10 year term as President of ISAF/World Sailing.
For the last four years of his term he was a member of the International Olympic Commission. As well as being President/CEO of his native Toronto’s bid for the 1996 Olympics he was part of the IOC’s Evaluation team for the 2012 Olympics.
Always a proponent of wide discussion amongst the sailing community and transparency Henderson is standing for another term as President to get some significant and vital issues facing Sailing addressed by sailors with their input both individually and via their International Class Associations.
At the end of Henderson's previous term as ISAF President, past IOC President, Dr Jacques Rogge commented: 'Paul Henderson has devoted his life to sport, as an athlete at the Olympic Games in Tokyo (in 1964) and Mexico City (in 1968); as President of the International Sailing Federation; and as a member of the ASOIF and GAISF Councils.
'I had the privilege to participate with him in the Finn class at the 1968 Olympic Games. We became friends there and have remained very good friends ever since.
'I want to pay tribute to Paul Henderson''s strong personality: he is a real sportsman and friend who has always acted with courage and realism, enabling sailing and the Olympic Movement to move forward.
'Paul is leaving to his successor a great legacy, a modern, well run, very respected Federation.'
Paul Henderson was not nominated for President by the Canadian national association
He has issued the following statement by way of his view of their reasons:
Several World Sailing officials have asked: “Why did Sail Canada not nominate you for President?”
This answer I trust gives an insight into my focus which is first on the sailors and what I believe is right.
Canadian Olympic hopefuls qualified in all 10 of the RIO2016 events with a total of 15 sailors.
Canadian Olympic Committee has a policy that if an athlete in any sport qualifies by their International Sport Federations and the IOC standards the athlete will be sent to the Games unless that the Canadian Olympic Sport Federation has a stricter criteria. In all previous Games all qualified young sailors were sent. Sail Canada for RIO2016 changed their policy and went from an “objective to a subjective system” and decided to keep 40% of our sailors at home, the only World Sailing MNA to do this to this level.
I became very militant to defend our sailors first quietly inside the Sail Canada hierarchy and then when it was obvious they would not send the sailors became very openly strident. Sail Canada even hired a well paid litigation lawyer to stop the appeal of a sailor before the legal appeal system now in place. One of the defences that they used was they did not feel Continental slots were significant going against the directives of both the IOC and World Sailing Regional Games Committee chaired by a Canadian.
Sail Canada did have a set of regattas by which their subjective decisions would be influenced and therefore they did not inform some of the sailors until June 12th 2016 they would not send them.
This meant that World Sailing had to inform the next-in-line countries to fill which was insensitive to the needs of those sailors as they only had a few weeks for their MNA’s to prepare and get to RIO2016.
If elected I will try and get Council to put in a criteria that if an MNA qualifies they must reject the slot within 4 weeks after qualification. If an MNA wants to go against the IOC and World Sailing policy and does not want to qualify by a Continental slot they must declare it two years before the Games so World Sailing can act accordingly.
As President I believe that your responsibility is to serve all sailors and not be answerable to the MNA that one happens to be from. In fact, I believe the World Sailing President should reject all involvement or influence from their MNA and serve all sailors worldwide equally.
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