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Sail-World.com : Editorial: A Sport of two Looks
Editorial: A Sport of two Looks
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'Justice Herman Cahn, the current face of the America’s Cup, and one of Seahorse magazine’s two nominees for January’s Sailor of the Month.'
Event Media
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Martin Tasker’s report, broadcast on Television NZ’s prime time news on Tuesday evening, very subtlety underscored the profile dichotomy into which the sport of sailing is currently cast.
Reporting live from Takapuna Beach, Tasker opened with a look at the latest round of America’s Cup legal slugfest, with reports from inside and outside the New York Supreme Court on the latest Hearing.
There we saw the unedifying sight of the scrum around Justice Cahn’s bench as he heard and tested the lawyers’ arguments over the legal minutiae that are the current lot of the premier trophy in sailing.
That was followed with a couple of interviews with key players on the Courthouse steps.
Initially, the sight of a couple of billionaires having a close range stoush over the America's Cup was mildly intriguing. However after the initial decision was made by Justice Cahn, and BMW Oracle announced that they too, had slipped the 34th America's Cup out to 2011, the interest factor has taken a real downhill slide.
Now the whole situation is grid-locked into the nuances of US legal practice. Most of us involved in sailing barely understand our own legal processes, let alone that of another country, and particular one as litigious as the USA. The America's Cup game is like a hurdles race, which seemingly has no finish line, and in which the opposing competitors can erect any number of barriers for their competitors to jump. Mildly fascinating for a while, but then interest levels drop severely. And, they haven't started Appealing yet.
Back on TVNZ prime time news, the camera cuts to Martin Tasker, standing on the boatramp at Takapuna Beach where the fleet has just returned from the third day of racing at the RS:X World Championships. Here we had the riders telling their stories and we could see the tremendous physical effort and skill that was required to race the Olympic windsurfer. The speeds up and downwind, together with the spectacle of the carving turns were something else again.
 | 48 countries are represented at Takapuna. Is this the biggest ever representation at a sporting event in New Zealand? - Richard Gladwell |
Top level sport, as the Voice of Sailing Peter Montgomery often says, is a study of people under stress. Nothing could be truer of the RS:X Worlds on Day 3 as most of the top competitors struggled in the changed conditions; saw they were not alone, then started a huge game of catch up.
This was the story of the other side of the sport of sailing, on that day.
As we have mentioned previously, the scene at Takapuna is a fantastic carnival of sailing. Said to be the biggest sporting event yet held in New Zealand - in terms of countries competing (48) – the regatta is having an impact on sailing fans who realise that there is a new game in town.
When the medal races are staged on Saturday, and with an onshore breeze, spectators should be able to see two World Championships decided between the top riders on the planet, and with the same ease that fans can see any other stadium sport.
The fans seem to be the forgotten factor in the current Cup brouhaha. They should never be taken for granted. Once gone to another game they are hard to win back. Without a fan base you don’t have sponsors, and without sponsors you have a very reduced, billionaires only, America’s Cup.
Watching top sailors in live action, just metres away, instead of at home in front of a television might just be the turning point for many disillusioned Kiwi America's Cup fans. Remember Auckland is the sailing-mad City that used to regularly have up to 100,000 spectators turn out for a Whitbread start and finish - even in the middle of the night.
Saturday will tell if there is a new game in town, and with two World Championships at stake in an Olympic class in Olympic year - does it get any better than that?
Then there is the chance to see some of the up and coming talent on the international sailing scene. Remembering that the Russell Coutts, Dean Barkers, Barbara Kendalls, Chris Dicksons and many many others launched their careers on these very waters, sailing in these types of regattas. Is the next generation on show at Takapuna. Surely!
Yep, the America's Cup does have big problems, not just from the RS:X class, but from all the other Olympic classes and professional sailing events which are well-managed; are properly controlled; are moving with the times; happen when they should, and show the best of the sport of sailing, not the worst.
Never take your fans and sponsors for granted. There is always another game in waiting.
Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
To see the TVNZ news story click here
by nzeditor@sail-world.com
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1:26 PM Wed 16 Jan 2008 GMT
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