Well done!

[John Elliott]

Hi Folks

 

I have just watched Men’s 470 Medal Race live on TV1 + digitalized tracking on computer via YNZ link.

 

Paul Snow-Hansen (our National Champion) and Dan Wilcox were so very close to winning a bronze medal.  They did what they needed to do (beat the Spanish boat), but needed to finish 2 places ahead of it.

 

As luck would have it, the USA boat also managed to beat the Spanish, but nobody else did.

 

Zut alors. (That is French.) 

 

Great effort by Paul and Dan. They deserve our congratulations. So close to world’s best.

 

 

My other thought- the TVNZ coverage on big-screen in High Definition horrified me.  Upwind:  470s are allowed to jerk around and pump their speed up to hell by doing that hellish pumping thing that windsurfers used to do. (This caused most people to give up racing windsurfers – it is bloody hard work.  But now that windsurfers foil, they are coming back to the sport because you don’t have to kill yourself pumping.)

 

Offwind – open slather: rocking, pumping, ooching – the lot.  The Aussies did it better unison than everybody else, and always made ground.

 

In 3-7s we allow neither behaviour  - so far.

 

I hope we stay that way.  This physical work has transformed the 470 into a boat that obviously goes fast – but you have to be ultra- fit to do it. I am reminded of the Tauranga Zephyr sailors who tried Lasers because they were faster, but quickly decided they were ‘Slave Ships’ because they  required so much physical effort. 

 

It looks to me like 470s in that race were also ‘Slave Ships’.  Hard work!

 

I have always loved sailing 3-7s because I got twice the fun for far less effort than those who sailed Lasers or Zephyrs.  But I am now turning 75, and I don’t think I can cope with the introduction of trapeze belly-bouncing combined with leech-flapping…

 

Let’s not allow that.

 

John E