It all starts somewhere

by John Curnow on 7 Nov 2016 Probably from time eternal people have had an idea and then decided to crack on from there. The examples are plentiful. There you are walking down the quay and you say to yourself, why don’t we see if we can go for a yacht on this. Of course, if your mates are around, there is even more input and suggestion to deal with. Another time, you’ll see two boats lining up together and you have a race right there and then.

Earlier on, like way earlier on, some people even said to themselves, I wonder what lies over the horizon? Wondering around the timber boat festival at the Royal Motor Yacht Club on Pittwater, you could even see how we used to sail. Not just around the sticks either. We are talking trans-oceanic. With pinched or even canoe sterns, low, low, low freeboard and all.

So yes it does all start somewhere and maybe this train of thought began when I got to reading about the Coady family once more. I was a bit surprised too, for I sort of remember a bit of brouhaha at the time, but not enough to make any sort of comment, other than ‘Oh yeah!’ No, the real surprise was that it was some time ago now indeed, and personally it feels like millennia, yet it was but just the two years. As the Hoodoo Gurus said – “like wow!”

Now then the real surprise is to find that this is still ongoing. Yep. It resides with the authorities, and I seriously wondered just who the hell could be winning from that? Apart from the lawyers, of course. The matter, I hear you say? It’s Coady v World Sailing (albeit ISAF at the time), and it goes back to the infamous Sailing World Cup, Melbourne.

We’ll take some background from their site and remind everyone that at the time, the 49erFX was only just on the scene. “The Coady family were members of Sandringham Yacht Club (SYC) in Melbourne, Australia. Atanosios Papantonio was the Boating Manager of SYC. He had previously made comments that Stephanie Coady should not be sailing a 49er. One week prior to the Sailing World Cup - Sail Melbourne 2014, he verbally abused Stephanie's father Paul Coady, while preparing Stephanie's boat and ordered her boat removed from SYC permanently.”

“Atanosios was also the Professional Race Officer (PRO) for SWC Sail Melbourne 2014. Stephanie had previously completed an SYC form for boat storage and had been notified of approval for storage that year. She was training along with other Sail Melbourne competitors and, no other competitor was told to remove their boat.”

“Stephanie entered the SWC Sail Melbourne 2014 in the Olympic Class 49er (Ed – with her father as crew). She completed all required paperwork and presented at registration and measuring as helm of the boat. Stephanie was known well by the PRO, the 49er IRO and 49er race officials.”

“It was known that Stephanie had been training in the 49er for the SWC 2014. World Sailing also published on their website, sailing.org, an article on the event highlighting Stephanie competing against the men as an example of the diversity of the competitors.”

“Stephanie sailed the first day of racing and retired early due to a damaged spinnaker pole. Before the second day racing she and Paul (her Father) were approached by the PRO (Atanosios) and told they were in violation of the gender rules in the Notice of Race (NOR). Paul explained that this was in violation of discrimination law. The PRO subsequently verbally abused Paul and Stephanie.”

“The PRO was later joined by a member of the International Jury (IJ). Paul requested that a protest be lodged in accordance with the Racing Rules of Sailing (RRS) before any action was taken. This was agreed by the PRO. Paul also explained they would not sail if a protest was lodged. An email was immediately sent to the event organisers asserting Stephanie's rights under discrimination law.”

Look. I’m not saying that just the one party let forth the nine guns of the IJN Yamato. Seems like Musashi, Tirpitz, Hood and Bismark were all there too. There are serious allegations all over this material. It’s likely there were good and bad decisions on both sides. Sure the NoR says ‘Men’s’, yet why start them racing in the first place? As a writer, the one thing I can assure you of is that these things have worms worse than barracuda.

Yet the basic thing to draw from it all is that a father and daughter wanted to have fun and go sailing. Now they are not. They were never going to set the world on fire, but also, they were not so outclassed as to be laughable. They could not compete in many things, yet Stephanie had racked up a lot of points already.

So has the sport failed them? Obviously a lot of people think so. At the time, ISAF was on about the strength of sailing was its diversity. This seems correct on the face of it, but plainly the officials took it way off course, so it is now very difficult to see how the sport has won. And yes, there are other, more recent events, that some might say are also discriminatory, albeit not on a solely gender basis. If you are interested, go to the website and make your own mind up - here. A lot of conjecture rules the waves, which is just plain old sad.

Alas, in closing, let’s look at the Nacra, and maybe even the 470s will go down the path of male and female sailing together. It is not a sin, and we do it on keelboats all the time…

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