Sailing

The will of allah

From Sailing Anarchy

Allah frowned on the Sultanate of Oman this past weekend after the beautiful town of Muscat provided yet another dismal showing for the beleaguered ACWS.  Fortunately, only a few gullible AC junkies paid to watch The World’s Fastest Boats drift around at 7 knots in another mind-numbingly bad pay-per-view production of The World’s Best Everything, and local spectators were nonexistent.

ISAF kindly waited for Russell Coutts’ Drifting Circus to end before releasing the news that proved ACEA is just as incompetent as ISAF at picking venues; after learning that they were required to guarantee equal treatment of all member nations’ sailors – even the Jews – Oman has officially withdrawn from their hosting of the 2016 ISAF Youth Worlds.

This is the same Oman that’s already spent tens of millions of dollars on the Oman Sail initiative to help transform the Sultanate into an international yachting destination while reintroducing Oman’s sailing heritage into the national culture.  Apparently, the Sultan just isn’t that into sailing any more – at least not if it means his kingdom needs to play by the same rules as everyone else.

Oman Sail CEO David Graham seemed to miss the news.  According to him, “The feedback…from the Louis Vuitton America’s Cup World Series Oman has been extremely positive. Let’s do it again!”  At least so long as the Jews stay home?

Several hig-ranking Israelis have  told us that without Sailing Anarchy’s highlighting of a little story on a little Tel Aviv news network back in November, this disturbing trend of anti-Israeli discrimination in international yachting may have continued unnoticed, and without thousands of you guys calling, writing, social media shaming, and otherwise holding ISAF and your national authorities’ feet to the fire; it’s a great example of the people taking their organization back from power-hungry bureaucrats and the vendors who curry their favor.

We also encourage you not to let up, and to continue to push back against the man who has presided over the most embarrassing period in ISAF/World Sailing history: President Carlo Croce.  While our sources have told us he is a passionate sailor who joined the ExComm to do good things, we’ve also seen how quickly power can corrupt at the top level of any sport.  Croce is currently caught in a massive and blatant conflict of interest that never should have been allowed — he continues to sit as both President of the Italian Sailing Federation AND President of Italy’s most prestigious yacht club — it’s time for a major change, starting with the man responsible for much of the opacity and intransigence of sailing’s governing federation.

Those who care about the governance of the sport and about sailing’s international reputation, we encourage you to get educated, and a good place to start is a deep look into the summarily inadequate Minutes of ISAF’s Executive Committee meeting from February 12th in Rio.  What’s the next big drama?  We think there are more than a few clues in here