Chinese media sit down with ISAF CEO

by ISAF on 24 Sep 2015 As racing wrapped up at ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao, Chinese news agencies and newspapers enjoyed the company of ISAF Chief Executive Officer Peter Sowrey with a round table interview session.

Check out some of the Q&As below

The ISAF Sailing World Cup has been held in Qingdao for three years now, why did ISAF choose to come to Qingdao?

I think it's an amazing place to have an ISAF Sailing World Cup event. It's in Asia, in China and it is a great honour for us as ISAF to be here. The weather is good and the wind is getting better and it's great. We really appreciate the support and help we get from the Chinese Yachting Association and the Qingdao Municipal Government. They offer amazing support and we really want to be here. It works for us, the sailors like coming here so it's a great place for us to be.

What do you think of this year's ISAF Sailing World Cup in Qingdao?

I am a big fan of sailing, I love sailing. To come here, I think it is amazing. I grew up in the Far East so I learnt to sail in Hong Kong. It's good to see the conditions here are pretty good and testing for our sailors. It's good for the sailors to get different feelings from different wind. The current is good and we have similar conditions to what we will experience in the Olympic Games next year in Rio. It's interesting. The teams are really appreciative of the support they're getting from the Chinese press as the media is very important for the sport of sailing to make sure they get the message of sailing out into the rest of the world. Europe and America are very established as sailing regions and China and the rest of Asia are coming along so there is a lot of focus on ISAF to make sure we support the old Olympic venues and this is a great legacy for the sport and the Olympics.

Ongoing for Qingdao, I think it's amazing what you've done here. The event looks really good and we are very impressed. For next year, it will be good to involve the community more. We are talking a lot with the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic movement to get more people involved in sailing.

I think at the events, even though we have racing, we need to have things like introduction to sailing, teaching in Optimists and much more of a family event to engage people who have maybe never sailed before. We need more people sailing, not just on the racing side but while we're not racing it's nice to get children and adults out on the water. That will be really good to build on for next year.

Qingdao is the only venue in Asia to host the ISAF Sailing World Cup. What can the organisation do to improve and promote the event further?

It's all about the stories and getting those out to the ladies and gentleman of the media. I'm really interested in how a sailor gets into sailing as it's a hard struggle sometimes to learn, teach and train. So getting those messages of the heroes out into the public and press is really important.

Sailing is a great transformer of life. People who don't necessarily go out sailing don't feel it in their heart. It's important we start sharing the messages and I rely on the press to help promote those good stories from not just the racing, but the training, the practices and all the hard work the athletes go through just to race. We get those stories out and connect them up.

Our vision within ISAF is this journey from young child coming through the Youth Worlds Emerging Nations Program going into training programs and competing at Sailing World Cups and then moving into the Olympics. And then from the Olympics moving into the Volvo Ocean Race and the America's Cup. This whole journey is very important and we really want to engage right from the start, making sure everyone is involved.

In the last several years the ISAF Sailing World Cup was not in Qingdao. In order to further promote this event which city will you choose to host this event in the future?

Our current feeling is to keep the Sailing World Cup in China, here in Qingdao. We will next year, once the Olympics is over, look to bring in a new event in Japan. A lot of the sailors will want to be close to the next Olympic venue but China is very important in our ongoing strategy. Qingdao is a great place and a great event for us to focus on in this region.

One of the things that's really important to understand as well is that the IOC are really putting a lot of pressure on ISAF to change the format of sailing. They want to see sailing very close to the shore and let users have a much better experience around the sport. As we go on, if we can bring sailing closer to the shore it can make it better for the spectators which is really important for the future of our sport. Realising the vision of the IOC, they want to see good sailing and not have it five miles away.

One of my biggest targets is to make sailing a much better spectator sport that is engaging.

This year's ISAF Sailing World Cup there are over 32 sailors here in Qingdao. There are many amateurs and fans of sailing sport, what do you have to say to the fans of sailing sport?

First of all, keep being fans, it's really important. Next year we are going to see the sport with more of an interface with the iPhone, iPad or a mobile so that the whole user experience is different so you can see camera angles on the TV, you can see data coming in so the fan experience will get much better.

We feel sailing is the perfect sport to engage with, not only on the water but with technology. We're working very hard to make sure the user experience in sailing changes so if you're a fan you can be very involved with sailors you like and follow. You can track them, understand where they're going. We're going to bring in a lot of technology with what's going on the water. We're moving further into the digital age and we feel sailing is perfect for using technology.

There is a new class, the Nacra 17 in Qingdao. Why was this boat chosen?

The IOC want sailing to be a very exciting sport and very dynamic. If you look at the next Youth Olympic Games you'll see we now have the Nacra and we have kitesurfing for the first time so we're trying out exciting disciplines. I think after the old Tornado's, which was a very successful catamaran, the feeling was that we wanted a dynamic class of sailing. The Nacra's fit this and it's amazing to see them.

At the Rio test event we had the Nacra's sailing off of the beach doing 20 knots. It's very fast and very exciting for people to look at, but also what's interesting for us within ISAF is that it is a mixed crew. It's one of the only sports in the Olympics which is mixed gender. It fulfils a number of roles for us, it's a very fast and exciting boat but also a very inspiring boat as well.