Is there cheating in sailing?
July 1, 2012 § 4 Comments
“Is there cheating in sailing?” asked the nationally acclaimed basketball coach.
An odd question, I thought, but logical. He lives in an ultra-competitive world.
“Sure”, I said, “boats can be improved illegally by subtracting weight.”
The Sports Psychologist added that on the race course there are opportunities to cheat when judges can’t see the action, and that there are rules against kinetics that can be hard to enforce.
We were together at the start of the All Instructors Symposium of the Junior Sailing Association of Long Island Sound. I was to speak on mentoring.
Sailing Country
June 15, 2012 § 1 Comment
This from one of my sailing heroes, Marc Fortune in Nashville, who assembled a top-notch team and broke new ground in sailing advocacy over the winter. It’s starting paying off for kids and families in and around the area.
Now that sailing season has returned for my fellow cheese heads, I am delighted to report that our Regional Summit has fired up the deckhands. Our sailing camp is as popular as ever and we may be adding a remote program to a community 50 miles south of Nashville. “It’s what Nick talked about at the Summit,” the promoter told me. So, my friend, you are indeed making this a better world – one sailor at a time.
Thanks for all you do for our sport, for what you helped us with in Nashville.
The big bonus: I learned that I have been harboring a secret love of country music. Look up Don Schlitz when you have a moment.
Here are a couple of highlights.
How to find sailing in Nashville: Start at the Parthenon
Filing a protest
June 9, 2012 § 1 Comment
First published on SailingAnarchy.com, June 2012.
Never accept a meeting request when the executive’s assistant starts with “he would like to tell you his ideas.” I did it this time and got burned.
These are the ideas of the head of AC-34′s Event Authority, in a nutshell:
- The financiers are tiring of the spend.
- Professional sailors can’t make a living.
- There aren’t enough amateur sailors supporting this pyramid.
So this AC will invent new TV heroes to attract fans to fund year-round professional sailors, take the financiers off of the hook, and transfer the costs to an unwitting couch-bound audience duped into an overpriced hat and a junkmailbox crammed with offers from sponsors. “We’re building a new pyramid.”
Oh, and sailors should sit quiet and be pleased, “’cause you get the trickle down.”
