FISA SURVEY
Mike De Petris
To help us shape the future of World Rowing, open the questions by
clicking on the red question bars (1 through 11) below. You can click
on the question bar or the white arrow to move forward or backwards.
Then, simply follow the instructions. All answers are multiple choice.
Please answer all the questions – it is your perceptions we are
researching. When completed simply click the submit button at the end
of the survey (scroll to end if hidden from view). Your answers will
remain anonymous unless you fill in the details before clicking on the
submit button. Thanks.
Carl Douglas
Somehow I just knew words to this effect would appear in the questionnaire:
"The equipment used in rowing is strictly-controlled to ensure a level
playing field for all competitors."
In what useful way is the equipment thus controlled?
I should note here that in the late mid '80s FISA tried very hard,
supposedly on grounds of saving cost at its own events, to impose FISA
Standard Boats on the sport. FISA finally accepted in Copenhagen in '87
that this was not such a good idea.
Before that FISA imposed minimum weight rules for boats, supposedly to
prevent an "arms race", yet no evidence was produced to suggest, let
alone support, the implication that very light boats must be fast boats.
And there is not a shred of evidence that, below typical weights,
lighter means faster. However, a number of crews have been disqualified
for presenting boats a smidgeon underweight after having stood on racks
in the sun for some days, while other crews take scrupulous care to
ensure plenty of water on & in their boats before official weighing.
If some wag reckons that weight matters enough in performance terms for
a minimum boat weight to be applied right across a boat class, & that
this creates a "level playing field for all", how do they resolve the
the obvious self-contradiction of expecting the smallest & largest
competitors in all & any events in that boat class to observe that same
minimum boat weight?
FISA permits boats to go afloat at its events with defective heel
restraints, which have caused at least one highly publicised dangerous
incident (Dorney 2006). Yet at a later FISA event in Scotland a
volunteer was over-ruled & admonished in public by a FISA official when
he tried to suggest that a crew should not go afloat with absent heel
restraints.
Meanwhile, FISA has seen fit to ban all makers' ID from equipment used
at its events, except that it seems to be OK to wear headbands with the
insignia of electronics suppliers & clothing makers' logos. In this
strange environment the equipment most directly related to rowing
performance (& thus of most interest to the rowing public) is disguised
by the deliberate taping over of minute as well as larger logos (even on
at least one case a maker's name in the centre of a sculler's seat pad,
but not the same maker's name printed along a HWt sculler's rigger stay.
Bow balls are supposed to be vital safety equipment. In fact no
meaningful tests on performance in general, or on function & condition
before racing, seem to be applied at FISA events. Last year a young
rower was skewered through his leg & into the boat by the bow of a very
new four which T-boned his boat. In the process this well-known
international manufacturer's product losing its supposedly protective
bow ball, plus great shards of its bow, & pinioned the man in a boat
which, fortunately, did not sink. This implanted a quantity of
splintered carbon fibres & other matter into his flesh. And that level
of bow non-protection is a) acceptable at FISA events & b)
I could go on, but you get my point.
Questionnaires which require their originator's tick-box statements to
be ranked for approval are, by their nature, bound to produce responses
which gratify their designers but cause those who find such devices
deplorable to give them a miss. So they are designed to misrepresent.
Very slick PR!
Carl
--
Carl Douglas Racing Shells -
Fine Small-Boats/AeRoWing Low-drag Riggers/Advanced Accessories
Write: Harris Boatyard, Laleham Reach, Chertsey KT16 8RP, UK
Find: http://tinyurl.com/2tqujf
Email: ca...@carldouglas.co.uk Tel: +44(0)1932-570946 Fax: -563682
URLs: www.carldouglas.co.uk (boats) & www.aerowing.co.uk (riggers)
Mike De Petris
> >http://www.worldrowing.com/index.php?pageid=223
...
> I could go on, but you get my point.
>
> Questionnaires which require their originator's tick-box statements to
> be ranked for approval are, by their nature, bound to produce responses
> which gratify their designers but cause those who find such devices
> deplorable to give them a miss. So they are designed to misrepresent.
> Very slick PR!
Thank you Carl for finding the time to clearly explain your ideas
again.
Carl Douglas
So my comments are merely "ideas", Mike.
Is it just my "idea" that these things have happened?
Or is it that my "ideas", by not entirely supporting the greater good
towards which FISA wants everyone to think it is working, are therefore
unwelcome?
Or am I falling down the usual hole of misinterpreting of what another
good guy is trying to say?
Cheers -
Mike De Petris
> So my comments are merely "ideas", Mike.
> Or am I falling down the usual hole of misinterpreting of what another
> good guy is trying to say?
you are not misinterpreting, it's me using the wrong word, sorry