“Fuck off World Sailing – we’re the clubs, and we’ll make our own rules.”
It seems that our cheeky summation ten days ago of the likely response from the clubs to the WS proposal for changes to Rule 52 (Manual Power) was spot on. The Commodores of four leading offshore clubs have now fired off a thundering six-page letter to the President and Chief Executive Officer of World Sailing, objecting to just about everything.
Joint signatories of the letter are the Commodores of the New York Yacht Club, the Royal Ocean Racing Club, the Storm Trysail Club and the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. They are the club-house equivalents of the legendary ostrich with its head in the sand.
These heavyweights in the administration of offshore racing pretend there isn’t a major problem in the conduct of the sport for which they carry significant responsibility.
“The pace of technological change in offshore racing raises real questions”, the letter says. Yet it coyly declines to even state what those questions are, let alone offer any answers. Instead, we get protracted procedural carping about the way the Offshore Committee’s proposals to separate the scoring for yachts sailed by human endeavour from those using computer-driven automated technology were formulated.
Rather than recognize this looming issue, the Ostrich Commodores retreat into a curiously circular attempt at logic.
They assert that because individual clubs have different approaches to the use of autohelm (i.e. the right of Organising Authorities to amend Rule 52), then that must be the correct approach. But the opposite is true. If a rule has to be constantly amended, that inconsistency is surely evidence that it doesn’t work in its current form, and should be changed to deliver global certainty.
Oh no, say the Commodores. “Organising Authorities need the tools and freedom to manage their own racing.” Each OA “knows the fleet, the waters and the people”. But the Committee proposal is about scoring, not race conditions. It is a recommendation, and would have no impact on a club’s ability to amend its NoR or SIs in response to factors that may be unique to a particular event.
The working detail of the proposals by the Committee might be improved, and the language made more precise. But this is an issue of fundamental sporting principle, not a quibble about rating systems or the mandated distance between lifelines. AI-driven powered technology is now far better than humans at steering, appendage control, and trim. We can no longer ignore those ‘man v machine’ differences, or imagine they are fair.
But the Commodores will have none of that. “We ask that the recommendation be removed … absent published analysis supporting it” their letter concludes. What “published analysis” does anyone need to establish that computer-driven automated systems on a racing yacht deliver superior performance to human endeavour? If it doesn’t, why is there such an ‘arms race’ scramble to use them? Yet there is not a single word in the lengthy Commodores’ complaint that recognises that obvious fact.
Stripped of all its false logic, scare-mongering and quasi-legal arguments, the letter is little more than an unstated plea for the status quo. The Commodores want front-of-the-fleet owners to still qualify for all the major trophies with unrestricted use of technology. In other words, they want an elite privilege to be protected and preserved.
The Constitution of World Sailing lists as its primary aim “to promote the sport of sailing in all its branches regardless of colour, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status”.
In what way could rejection of the Offshore Committee’s proposal on Rule 52 possibly promote the sport and encourage more participants? It is likely to have a contrary effect. The high cost of retro-fitting AI-driven technology is prohibitive for all but the very wealthy.
Most offshore fleet numbers are already trending down. The heart of the sport – mid-sized boats, sailed conventionally – is being hollowed out as their chances of a podium finish become increasingly remote. Is that really the future World Sailing wants?
The Bosun
