Presidential nominee's calls for wider sailing discussion are rejected

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com on 20 Sep 2016 Former International Sailing Federation President, Paul Henderson (CAN) has called for sailors via their International Class Associations to be involved in two key policies being developed by World Sailing.

One of these, the re-jigged Sailing World Cup format has been announced by World Sailing (the re-badged ISAF) the other; a second, the 'Strategic Platform' is still 'confidential and commercially sensitive.'

In a letter sent to World Sailing's Board of Directors and CEO, Henderson has questioned why two critical policies are being developed at this time when 50% of the Board of Directors and possibly the President will change in just over two months time.

Henderson has been nominated as President, for a third term. Widely known as 'The Pope of Sailing', he previously served from 1996-2004 which was an era of significant change for the world body. The Toronto plumber is challenging the incumbent President Carlo Croce (ITA) who was elected in November 2012. Under the World Sailing constitution, Croce is entitled to serve another four-year term, if re-elected.

The Letter
Mr. Hunt: cc To Concerned Sailors

As you are fully aware one of the major issue that triggered my nomination again to be World Sailing President is the new 'corporate governance' model now being followed which is where the CEO and Executive Staff, out of Southampton, conceive policies which impact Sailing and the sailors without inclusive open debate allowing them to achieve significant changes to the competitive and diverse sport of Sailing.

Two major issues which are now being put forward are the 'Sailing World Cup' and 'Strategic Platform' both of which will have major consequences for Sailing and specifically the sailors.

World Sailing Executive Staff have or are preparing these initiatives without what I believe is 'Procedural Fairness'.

International Class Associations have always been a strong pillar of the sport of Sailing as they transcend national borders and represent a solid fraternity of Sailors, International Classes are responsible for the technical aspects of their contribution to Sailing.

The IOC has a similar structure where they acknowledge, respect and involve the two pillars of the Olympic Movement which are the National Olympic Committees who prepare their National Teams and the International Sport Federations (IF's) who are responsible for all technical aspects of the Games of which Sailing is one of the 25 core sports.

IF's are included openly in all decisions of the IOC even to having 15 of their Presidents voting members and a position on the Executive Board.

The CEO and Executive Staff will have a briefing of all MNA's a month before the November AGM and elections on their latest initiative a 'Strategic Platform' limited to only MNA's and not the 'public.'

I would recommend that World Sailing Board of Directors allow an appointee of each recognized International Class Association to be allowed to dial into the October 4th briefing on the 'Strategic Platform' as it would appear that they could be greatly impacted by whatever is being proposed by the CEO and Executive Staff.

respectfully submitted,

Paul Henderson

A Sailor and Nominee for World Sailing President

Australian Sailing reacts
Henderson's communications with the CEO and Board of World Sailing come on the back of a media statement issued by Australian Sailing (the be-badged Yachting Australia) expressing the Australian member national authority's (MNA) concern over the fact that under the fourth edition of the World Sailing Cup policy there will not be a single SWC event in the Southern Hemisphere.

Currently, there has always been a leg of the SWC circuit in Melbourne, which has been either the opening event or the Final, as it will be in December for the 2016 Sailing World Cup. The southern hemisphere leg has always been plagued by poor attendance from European sailors who will not travel past the USA.

To counter this, the organisers of the Sailing World Cup Melbourne have taken the unprecedented step of offering a six-figure cash prize winners purse and have invited and offered funding to the 2016 Olympic medallist crews to compete Down Under.

In 2010, the ISAF commissioned then Yachting Australia CEO, Phil Jones - who had been a key figure in the organisation of the 2000 Olympics - to convene a full review of the top end of the sport as much as it was within the control of ISAF and recommend changes.

That review which published a publicly published discussion draft and then final document found that the sport was highly Euro-centric regarding events, Olympic success, and participation.

Sailing was then believed to be under threat of being dropped from the Olympic calendar. It was shown to be one of the lowest rating TV sports, one of the most expensive Olympic sports to produce, and compared to other sports had poor penetration and representation in the so-called developing countries compared to other Olympic sports.

The changes proposed by the Olympic Commission were almost universally adopted by World Sailing and were almost fully adopted for the 2016 Olympic cycle and regatta.

One of the key changes was the development of the Sailing World Cup event, along the lines of some other Olympic sports, with SWC events in Asia and Oceania. Those events, in turn, became Olympic qualifiers for the so-called developing nations under a new system recommended by the Olympic Commission to encourage greater regional diversity and opportunity for less well-heeled nations to compete without the need for expensive travel to Europe.

All of the places offered under the Regional Qualification system in the Laser Radial and Laser classes were taken up for the 2016 Olympics and with a mixed response in others.

With the exclusion of the Southern hemisphere from a so-called Sailing World Cup, the future of the regional regattas and Olympic qualification seems to be left hanging.

Paralympic action needed
Also facing an uncertain future are the Paralympic classes which were an integral part of the Sailing World Cup, with most regional events offering competition on one or two, and sometimes all three Paralympic classes. For sailors in those events being part of the regional Sailing World Cup events offered vital prestige and one of the few opportunities to compete at the same level and be recognised under the same spotlight as able-bodied sailors.

With Sailing now dropped from the Paralympics, World Sailing will need to show that it has a clear recovery plan for this aspect of the Sport and that it can demonstrate success on the water and pulling the numbers rather than just looking good behind closed doors on Power-Point.

Henderson is also pushing back against the inclusion of kite-surfing in the 2020 Olympic calendar as part of the Sailing events. In his view kite-surfing should be aligned with the new Olympic sport of Surfing, as it has little in common with sailing events.

For the 2020 Olympic sailing schedule World Sailing will have to juggle the competing overtures of the two windsurfer events and kite-surfing; calls for the inclusion of a keelboat event; inclusion of a foiler event; retention of the Finn as a heavyweight men's boat; and an International Olympic Committee stipulation of gender equality. And staying within the same number of events and maybe a lesser number of sailors. Plus the IOC has signalled that it will have more oversight on event selection than previously.

On the latter point, Henderson again takes issue with the view that gender equality means and an equal number of events and medals for both genders, noting that some other sports have an imbalance and that juggling of the current slate in this regard is unnecessary.

To date, World Sailing has rejected Paul Henderson's calls for a wider level of inclusion and discussion together with a delay in any decisions until after the November 2017 elections, preferring to keep the discussion on the Sailing World Cup within the MNA group. Neither will it release the Strategic Platform discussion document even to Henderson as a Presidential nominee.

From here, Henderson is expected to liaise closely with the smaller countries which make up the majority of the World Sailing membership and then attempt to carry that support into the Presidential election and win from the floor of the November meeting as he did in 1996 when he was again opposed by the then ISAF hierarchy.