Gladwell's Line - What the Olympics can learn from the Youth Worlds

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-world.com on 28 Dec 2016 The 2016 Aon Youth Sailing World Championship has come and gone.

This regatta was the closest that New Zealand will ever get to holding an Olympic regatta, with around 380 competitors from 66 countries competing in nine classes

The Aon sponsored worlds was staged at very short notice and was a real credit to the organisers, volunteers and those who chipped in with race management boats.

Luck is an essential factor in running any successful, and this regatta had more than its fair share, with a fine weather window that started on cue and continued for a couple of days after the regatta.

The sight of the postponement signal was very rare at Torbay, indeed if in fact it was flown at all. That is quite remarkable for a regatta sailed in Auckland.

To a large extent, this was a pop-up regatta.

The boats were all supplied and came in from overseas manufacturers. As with the Olympic Regatta, many of the senior race management officials and Jury were flown in, and were augmented with volunteers engaged locally. The formula worked well in Rio and also at Torbay.

On the water the senior members of the race management team are working as part of a common backbone and following familiar processes. Add in some top local people, and you have a formidable team which appeared to click from the outset.

Having been on the water, in the front row seat as a photographer for the 12 days of the Olympic regatta in August, and then five days of the Youth Worlds, there are some interesting comparisons that can be made.

The Medal Race should be the first to get the chop from the Olympics.

The 2016 Youth Worlds showed that the conceptual thinking behind the Olympic Medal Race is completely flawed.

At Torbay, a full fleet Final race was sailed which counted for the same points as any other race. It was also the same (short course - two lap option) as the regular racing.

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Yes, there were some Gold medals that were already won before the start of the Final race - same as happened in the Olympic regatta.

But the Medal race in the Olympic regatta has never really delivered on its promise that all Medals would be largely determined in the Medal Race. It happened in one event (49erFX) in 2016 and just one event (Women's Match Racing) in 2012.

What the Final Race concept does add is the spectacle of much bigger fleets. The use of double points for the Medal Race is also not needed if a Final Race is used, as top competitor buried in the ruck of a 20-55 boat fleet is going to be hit even harder than they would in the double points scoring, ten boat Medal Race fleet. The math is simple.

In short, the Medal Race should be seen for what it is - an attempt to be seen to be doing something when in fact nothing is actually achieved.

The nonsense of a massive coach boat flotilla was also laid to rest at the Youth Worlds.

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On the water, coach boats were banned at Torbay and the coaching flock perched on one of several large maxi yachts (Lion New Zealand and Steinlager 2) or large powerboats.

Gone was the need for a one coach boat for every competitor/course. Instead, there were rescue and safety boats which shepherded the fleets to and from the race courses. The youth sailors sailed to and from the race areas. A gear boat or two was on each course to carry the necessary water and gear bags. The banning of coach boats bought self-reliance back into the equation.

The sooner this nonsense is put to bed at all regattas, the better. Copious individual support boats are not required - they just add to the traffic congestion on the beach. On the water, the disturbance with boat wakes was noticeably less than the Olympics (even though at that regatta the coach boats are penned during racing).

The support boat swarm just detracts from the racing and sailors.

Without coach boats, some serious thought needs to go into safety when racing on a big wind/wave day on the Atlantic Ocean courses used in Rio de Janeiro, but the underlying principle is the same - coach boats should be banned, as they are for other Olympic boat sports.

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As mentioned all boats were supplied. In contrast to the Olympics (and this may be standard for Youth Worlds), the singlehanded classes (Laser Radial and RS:X) had a boat for each sailor. In the two-handed classes (420 and 29er) boats were shared between female and male crews - with one gender racing and then returning to the shore to swap with the other gender who then proceeded out for their racing.

Whether this concept is portable to the Olympics is questionable, simply because the crews cannot easily optimise the rigs for their weight/righting power, in the same way they can with their own hulls and rigs in classes like the 470.

Much comment was made before the event of the use of the Nacra 15 in this regatta - its first outing in youth sailing competition.

The new twin trapeze catamaran, complete with gennaker appeared to come through the regatta with flying colours.

Crews were allocated their boats on the Wednesday before the start of the regatta, had a practice race on Thursday and were into the racing proper on Friday. That is a tight timeframe by any standard but seemed to work OK.

The first day of racing in the Nacra 15 was conducted in testing conditions for any multihull - squally offshore winds, with the New Zealand crew doing one spectacular capsize when leading in the second race of the regatta. It is good to see a boat that tests crews' boat handling skills used at this level.

To some eyes, the Nacra 15 seems a little underpowered however this had the effect of making female crews a more viable option, and there was a mix of all male crews, female helms, bow girls - all without the forced Olympic option of a mixed gender crew. Of the top five crews overall in the Nacra 15, three were mixed gender.

Israel was the most outstanding nation at the regatta. On the water their performance was excellent - winning three medals from six classes. Windsurfer Yoav Omer was the most outstanding individual sailor in the regatta, scoring nine wins from 13 races in the Boys RS:X. Off the water, the Israelis seemed to have put the abomination of the 2015 Worlds behind them. On the water they let their sailing do the talking.

These Worlds came to New Zealand because World Sailing took strong action to require future venue hosts to guarantee entry to all eligible from Member National Authorities. Oman who was due to host the 2016 regatta could not give this assurance, and the 2016 regatta was reallocated to New Zealand at short notice, and jointly run by Yachting New Zealand and World Sailing.

Yoav Omer refused to be drawn on the 2015 incident - even though as the current RS:X class World Youth Champion he was favourite to win the World Sailing Youth Gold Medal for the same year. He was denied this opportunity because of political discrimination by the Malaysian Government.

A year later at Torbay, Yoav Omer turned in a stunning performance. Not just with the number of wins, but with winning margins and style reminiscent of double Olympic Gold medallist Dorian van Rijsselberghe. There was no second to the flying Israeli. Although he appeared slightly built onshore, the Yoav Omer grew in stature on the water, and it was hard to believe that he was competing in a Youth event. His was an Olympic champion's performance.

Overall it was hard to fault the 2016 Youth Worlds. Ten out of ten is the well-deserved rating for the event.

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