Opening address by the ISA President, Niamh McCutcheon

the president welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked Norman Lee and Byran Armstrong for raising the issues that led to the meeting being held. The President highlighted how the ISA is working currently to its third strategic plan as agreed by the membership, and that the ISA's role is to support clubs and ensure that the proper infrastructure is in place, much of which is implemented by the ISA Regional Development Officers.
The President went on to say that time and money are two factors that hinder participation in sport, and that there was a need for a better link between clubs and classes.
The President mentioned the effect that the Olympic successes in boxing have had on the sport, resulting in interest at club level is currently beyond capacity, and hoped similar results in sailing would raise the profile of the sport. The President reiterated that none of the membership income was put towards the Olympic programme, and that they are funded by separately by the Sports Council.
Although sailing is the predominant activity of ISA members, the President highlighted how it is facilitated by other disciplines of the organisation, and that the sailing couldn't happen without the use of powerboats, and that ISA also has the responsibility to teach people how to use them responsibly and defend against legislation.
The President finished by thanking Paddy Maguire, former ISA President, for agreeing to chair the meeting.
Paddy Maguire, Former ISA President, member of the RSGYC and DBSC stated to the floor that he was chairing the meeting as a neutral, and asked the floor if there were any objections to him chairing the meeting. There were none.
Paddy Maguire went through an outline of the format that the meeting would take, and then asked for an overview from Roger Bannon, former ISA President, Normal Lee and Bryan Armstrong.

Roger Bannon started by saying the numbers present highlighted that dinghy sailing is in trouble. The key problems relate to declining numbers participating, retention of juniors is low, standard of racing skills has declined and that the progression to adult classes is virtually non-existent. Elite sailing has been implemented at the expense of improving standards generally, and supporting international participation in non-pathway approved classes. Instructor's training is inconsistent with many instructors qualifying without the basic sailing and racing skills to train junior sailors to even a modest level of acceptable competence. He feels that the ISA is putting time and resources into aspects not relevant to the majority of members, and said that it was clear that several things can be initiated in the short term to improve the situation.
He Highlighted that the ISA was the first sport in Ireland to introduce a coordinated National Junior Programme in the 1960's, and was the first to have a dedicated high performance department. Roger Bannon went on to say that this history of innovation should give us the confidence to go forwards and to re-invent important aspects of sailing in Ireland.
He continued by saying the initiative taken by Cruiser Sailors in Ireland, with the establishment of ICRA several years ago, demonstrates what can be done quickly and effectively. ICRA (the Irish Cruiser Racing Association) has revitalised cruiser racing in Ireland with brilliant ideas such as the establishment of "White Sail" racing. However as an observation of the success of "white sail" racing, Roger also said it was worth noting that this innovation was largely in response to the inadequate availability of trained crew to sail these boats in any other manner. He quoted the ICRA initiatives priority "to get as many people as possible sailing regularly, in whatever boat, at whatever skill level, in a safe competitive environment and then success in achieving increased participation would become self –fulfilling".
Roger Bannon went on to say that we need changes in the way leadership of Irish Sailing is structured, and highlighted the following 3 areas that need to be addressed at different levels:
Urgent Specific Changes are required immediately to our Junior and Youth training programs
• Re introduce the training Log Book to encourage diverse experience of different types of sailing.
• Redesign the junior training program to ensure adequate seamanship and racing skills in single and double handed boats.
• Introduce rigorous assessment of the racing and sailing skills of training instructors before qualifying them and reduce the costs of qualification.
• Perform on the job quality assessment of Instructors.
• Change the proscriptive policy on selection of junior classes and de-emphasise the disproportionate focus on single handed classes.
Club sailors and Classes must get direct support
• Adopt a progressive and active strategy to improve the standard of sailing at club and class level.
• Staff appointed to monitor and train Instructors should be qualified coaches with skills which can be made available for adult and class specific coaching and sail training at Club and class level.
• Financially support participation at international championships for at least some non- pathway approved Classes.
• Clubs must deliver resources and facilities which are affordable.
Need the ISA to change
• The ISA must refocus its priorities to primarily serve the interests of its sailing members who comprise the vast majority of its membership base.
• Change the ethos of the organisation from being a bureaucratic administrator to being one of a hands-on service provider with its main focus on sailing activities.
• Disengage from non-core activities which absorb a disproportionate amount of resource and redeploy financial and personnel resources to provide funding for a new grass roots focussed sailing strategy.
• Develop an effective strategy to engage and communicate with club sailors.
• None of these changes should be done at the expense of the excellent ring fenced operational and financial support for elite and Olympic sailing.
Roger Bannon finished by saying that good sailors attract competition, regardless of the type of boat- and although he didn't believe we'd resolve the issue in today's meeting, that it was a good place to start.
Norman Lee started by highlighting that Roger and the Afloat.ie contributors had already touched on many of the points, the ISA was formerly IDRA- Irish Dinghy Racing Association. He criticised the ISA junior syllabus, saying 11 courses were too many, and he felt that racing should come in earlier in the syllabus. He said there was too much emphasis on single handed boats, and detailed how three sail boats teach more skill sets, as well as being more sociable, fun and team work orientated. Norman went on to say the ISA was started by the classes, and that junior courses were set up to build the classes. Classes and clubs need commitment to get juniors into adult/senior classes. Senior classes need to allocate time for junior sailing, starred races as an example, to ensure juniors know about senior classes before they finish as juniors
Norman felt that instructors should be competent in the classes they are instructing in, and that the cost of instructor training and revalidating needs to be reduced. He personally feels that juniors need to get involved in racing earlier, and in three-sail boats.
Bryan Armstrong took the floor saying that what was missing from the debate so far was a response from the ISA. He was depressed by the ISA President's address saying that it seemed to him that not much had been learned. He highlighted that he doesn't want the ISA to continue making the same mistakes.
Bryan worried that the ISA didn't know participation figures until they were required for the meeting, saying that these figures should be invaluable data to the ISA, and that clearly they aren't being assembled and used.
His recommendation was to keep it simple, work together and increase dinghy racing participation, which then requires little additional skill to get competent in cruiser racing. The purpose of motion was to encourage ISA to refocus.
Agenda Items 1 & 2 1. What are the problems with small boat sailing and how can youth training be made more relevant to clubs and classes? 2. How can the ISA refocus to put clubs and classes at the top of its agenda?
The Floor was then opened to speakers.

Ben Fusco- Head coach RSGYC; KYC and UCD member

Payback cost for instructors on initial training is 5 weeks of work - RYA training is of lower standard than ISA training - Adventure qualifications shouldn't be required to instruct - ISA need to get rid of certs-children shouldn't fail on their holidays - Re-introduction of logbook needed - Finds it ridiculous that clubs emphasis high performance- academy's, "green lifejackets" - Used examples of the RSGYC hoping to hold team racing for youth, organise a team racing euros to broaden horizons of junior sailors, taking two youth teams to the 1720 internationals - Said that we are wasting a lot of opportunities with boats sitting on the docks

Gerry Byrne- Skerries Sailing Club; Wayfarer sailor

Not going to talk about dinghy sailing- has identified a lack of skill in those keelboat sailing - Ran a course in Skerries for newcomers to introduce basics of racing, 30% were members of 5 years or more
Gordon Davies- Irish Team Racing Association Examined figures for the different courses being run - Highest take-up of levels that can be run in club boats - big fall off of numbers at next step when child is required to buy own boat - Jump from student to racer seems a big jump, and not that easy to make - Used example from the continent where children are brought to a sports school with club owned boats- can then get racing without all the travel - Team racing is an efficient use of boats with 6 boats getting 30 sailors on the water at an event - Believes that Senior Instructors should have basic boat-man skills, and be able to maintain and repair boats to a minimum level - He highlighted that the step up from 2 weeks sailing in a pico, to club racing is a huge transition- Team racing figures are improving, student nationals with the equivalent of 50 boats (108 sailors)

Fiachra Etchingham- Grestones SC; RS400, RS800

Drew attention to ISA pop-up stand images, said that not enough relating to sailing - Felt that the title of the SBSS was an end to itself- not training people to move on - Used the GSC Women on the Water event to highlight how competitive events can be run in an enjoyable form

David Ballesty- Wicklow Sailing Club

Not a sailor- volunteer in the club as a result of child doing the SBSS - Noted that a majority of people on committees don't sail - Said the upskilling of the volunteers is too expensive i.e. Safety Boat Drive cert will cost approx. €600 - Obvious problem that pico's used in training, but no pico racing - Felt that if events were held, people would attend them - Highlighted age profile of the room (>25) and said challenges for ISA are enormous- looking for solutions to solve youth problems, yet no youths present. Wondered why no instructors were participating in the debate - Was appalled with the problem that Garda Vetting is going to create

David Vinnell- Galway Bay Sailing Club -Laser sailor for 40 years

Clubs must nurture all new members, brought into sailing in whatever way that person needs - Many of active members/sailors have never been on a formal sailing course - Need a good team to run junior sailing, not just one person - Need committed people for the classes - ISA PR, and communications should reflect the members, not just the ISA aspirations - ISA and RDOs must come out to regions more, doing a great job, but unhappy we were in DL again for this meeting - Great emphasis last year on Sail Spree, not enough emphasis this year- no details on ISA homepage

Pat Donnelly- National Yacht Club - Parent of 3 kids sailing optimists

Can't understand criticsm of single handed boats. Highlighted that at the end of the day it's what the kids enjoy - Finds standard of coaching in Ireland very bad - Celtic Tiger has resulted in spoiled children with not enough dedication - Suggested brining in RYA instructors, or contacting RYA regarding how they do things - Upgrade ISA coaching standards using the RYA experience

Andy Johnston- Sutton Dinghy Club

Reiterated support for Ben and Gordon - Agreed logbooks need to be re-introduced - Mentioned that although he felt the pathway scheme is required, it was a problem when a pathway boat wasn't sailed in a club scheme. Felt it's causing good sailors to leave club classes - Children shouldn't be forced into specific classes - Used rugby as an example- rugby was changed to allow any club/school to forward on to nationals- maybe we should follow this example so that a good sailor in a mirror doesn't have to leave a club in order to get 420 sailing - Suggested that ISA members volunteer to assist the ISA in dealing with other bodies, to allow the ISA staff to focus on sailing/on-the-water activities

Kerry-Ann Boylan- Mirror sailor

18 years old, just out of junior sailing-transitioning to senior sailing - Competent sailor, has competed in many classes, ISA qualified instructor - Sees lots of elitist sailing - Going to college next year and doesn't know what next step will be - Sails a mirror, has an oppy crew on the IRL team who says he really enjoys mirror sailing - Finds a restriction that the Mitsibushi Nationals only include pathway classes- should be more options

Stephen Harrison- DMYC; IDRA 14 - Former IDRA Commodore

Didn't come in to sailing via the usual route, only started at 25 - Highlighted that 'dinghy sailing' often associated with juniors- but should also include adult dinghy sailing - We should be aware that not everyone wants to sail big boats - Huge range of boats, not just pathway - Schemes should be encouraged nationally to encourage dinghy sailing for both adults and juniors

Laura Dillon- ISA Board Member; ISA Sailfleet Board; HYC

Long term sailor- has come up through the ranks- , ISA Olympic, instructor programmes etc. - Reiterated that no youths in the room was a big problem- we need to be engaging with the youths - Spoke to the HYC juniors during the week- they said there is a lack of consistency in standards across the country. - Her understanding is that logbooks are still around, and is up to clubs to enforce them-HYC still using logbooks- if it's not monitored, it won't happen - Obvious problem is to get people on the water in between the weeks' courses- it would serve to reinforce and encourage participants to get up to a better skill level for the following season - ISA not fully to blame, up to all in the room to be part of the solution - From meeting we need 5 key action points that we can all agree on

Gareth Craig-LDYC -

Did junior course and qualified as ISA instructor in late 90s Was massive status symbol - passing level 5 meant a huge lift in confidence - was a tough course - Recognise ISA have made big steps to improve levels of instructor qualification - Noted that previous hierarchy of instructors was clearly defined - now it is unclear - Logbook had authority - still in possession - Sailed mirrors, was a big fleet, which resulted in great craic - mirrors not high performance or thought of as 'cool', but fleet was great fun and that was a big attraction to sailors - Crew aspect also brought new blood into the circuit

James Hackett- Mullingar Sailing Club - JO for 11 years - not by choice

Came late to sailing- GP14 sailor, and is an average club sailor - Children learned in mirrors - Has seen 25 instructors come through MSC in the last 10years- standard of instructors has varied - Feels cost is too high- only 3 weeks of courses in MSC, so instructors can't recoup training costs
Pre-instructor assessment is very tough - Believes in getting own sailors through clubs to become instructors to develop the club, however the cost is so high, and the return so low, that many of them are leaving - Huge effort required, and at the point that they become good instructors they often leave - In 10years has only received 1 visit from the ISA- has only spoken to office regarding certs - Needs more communication from the ISA

Neil Colin - Fireball Class

Fireball perspective is that ISA doesn't exist - Could use help organising events, dinghy racing week as an example - ISA needs to be more involved in coordinating events and it would be a better use of their resources - Sees very little support of ISA one design and dinghy racing on the ISA board - Asked the question, where are the adult instructors? Better able to interact with adults learning to sail

Seamus May- Mirror Sec

Mirror class endorse what most others said - Mirror perspective- mirror boat has launched thousands of successful sailing careers- was all about fun - 99% of people in Sligo community learned to sail in mirrors – Learning to sail is about making friends, meeting people, learning to communicate and have fun - Mirror class feels enormous disconnect with the ISA - ISA for Mirror class may as well not exist - ISA Pathway is killing the mirror fleet which is compounding issues, pathway as currently structured is flawed and a crude instrument - Clubs want to get into mirrors, but won't because the pathway isn't there - RYA mirror sailors are way ahead - Class organised its own coaching last year - World championships are in Lough Derg; no input/support from ISA. 120 boats on the water, 40 confirmed from other nations the rest made up of Irish boats - The Irish Mirror Class Association would like the ISA to back the mirror dinghy

Paddy Maguire encouraged attendees to take a 30min break, to informally discuss the issues together and to complete the feedback forms- so that the ISA could present the results post coffee break.

Agenda Item 3. How can these issues be addressed in the short term and long term?

After the coffee Break, the ISA President identified the ISA Board and staff members who were present in the room in case any of the attendees wanted to approach them post-meeting.

The Chairman once again invited comments from the floor:

Sean Craig -

Thanked ISA for arranging meeting and Norman and Bryan- great turnout - Feels like a misrepresentation of what's going on in the country at the moment- numbers haven't fallen dramatically over last 10 years in racing, see ISA spreadsheet supplied. Lots of great racing taking place across the country. Some classes have died out (enterprise) but new boats stepping in to take their place (RS, SB20)20 years ago, some classes were written off - Fireball, J24 etc. Now up to 20 - 30 at nationals - There is hurt as racers feel like the neglected middle ground as ISA got into wider boating and ring fenced high performance. The main problem is age profile, classes are ageing. If new blood was coming we wouldn't be here at this meeting. -Success is down to the people power and classes, not the ISA - Infrastructure is there, classes are organised, we just need to tap into that - Need to ignore red herrings of classes not talking with the ISA enough and single vs double handed debate - Need to be careful with the solutions- agreed with Laura Dillon, 5 objectives, don't get distracted by politics – Suggestion ; New ISA campaign – "Go racing", two parts ; stay racing and start racing. Stay = junior. Training them heavily results in a 5 - 10% stay in. Kills the in-between classes like mirrors, fevas etc. - Start racing is about converting people to try racing - Adults are racing 1720s in DBSC, working well

Sarah Byrne- Greystones Sailing Club; RS200/400/Feva

11 club picos used for club training and racing- worked really well in "the boom" the children got to improving skills level and then bought their own boats - Club reaping the benefits now. However may I clarify my thought process: In current climate parents can't afford to buy the boats so their children are dropping out - Provide club pathway, doesn't have to be ISA pathway - Oppies are a no in Greystones due to tide - Club pathway isn't compulsory, use club picos/own boats, i.e. Club picos/own boats-> Feva -> RS 200/400 (still supporting lasers etc) all racing together works really well - Led to believe that DBSC don't welcome sailors under 18 - Volunteering has fallen off a precipice- would appreciate advice/support from ISA.
Mirror in family, huge maintenance load- Kids want sexier boat, parents want low maintenance and longer competitive t- important to keep in mind when creating club pathway

Gerry Byrne- Skerries Sailing Club

Congratulated ISA for its Club Development Scheme- checklist of things to do to improve as a club "Key Club Scheme" is something the RIYC and SSC undertook - SSC initiated a process where new members had someone to go to- a "New Members Class Captain" - Daunting to join a club, social minefield - Huge problem with perception about rules of sailing - New members class captain (vs membership development) - Directly related to sailing, person who could take them sailing, get them sailing on other boats - New members found it exciting to sail out of the harbour - BBQ on the beaches etc. - Class that prospered was the class that the class captain sailed - Made a point that the ISA PR need to go back to the drawing board and redesign it and reintroduce the Key Club Scheme

Des McWilliam- McWilliam Sails

Vested interest. If people don't go sailing, he doesn't eat! - Strong element of partnership between ISA and clubs required - We don't make best use of facilities we have, people we have – we tend to ignore human element of the kids - Instructors may be Olympic class, but doesn't mean they're good managers - Instructors should understand that kids have to enjoy it - Attendees are the 10% of people who still sail- biased views - we don't know why the 90% don't want to go sailing any more
Two goals for ISA - improve elite sailing, easy to measure and test, gets lots of attention. Human soft problem is how to increase basic participation. ISA and clubs are not good at this. Suggestion is kids need to enjoy their sailing, do sailing because it's fun. Find out how to rectify the 90% issue

Padraig Boyle- Sutton Dinghy Club; GP14

Needs for a concentration on tuition for adults- should be a structure between clubs and classes to continually facilitate adult sailing - Strong adult section results to junior sailors to continue sailing
Clubs need to take on classes of boats they can handle and grown participation

Michael Tyrrell- RIYC JO; RS Feva

Surprised by people's comments regarding the skill level of instructors- hasn't personally found a problem with this - Points on junior syllabus: Dramatic drop off at 15/16 in the club, kids feel they've finished syllabus in the club, feel progression is to become an instructor at age 16 pre-assessment, many end up dropping out for the year - Clubs need to work on keeping them involved for the year- SBSS needs to be tweaked to include more two-handed sailing earlier in the syllabus - Feels the earlier children get into double handed boats, the more fun they'll have and the higher the chances of them staying in the sport- courses should be tweaked to reflect this – also increase the age limit on the Feva Pathway even by a year.

Monica Shaefer- Greystones SC; Wayfarer

Participation is key - Likes wayfarer as it allows racing, socialising, cruising and holidays all in the same boat. Boat also more forgiving with regard to mistakes and lower skill levels - Need to have fun and enjoy sailing- a forgiving boat will encourage fun - Wayfarer is a good boat for introducing people to the sport - Cruising events running along side international events results in great social aspect and return trips - When they become competent they can move on to other classes - Goes to RYA dinghy show annually, and as a result misses ISA National Conference - Dinghy show was down in numbers this year, but wayfarer sales were way up - With people no longer being able to afford cruisers, there is an opportunity for a dinghy revival

Breda Dillon- HYC

Delighted so many people at the meeting looking to communicate with the ISA - Up to clubs and classes how we all communicate - Thinks we should get back to more volunteers and better communication

Charles Sargent- Sutton Dinghy Club; IDRA 14

Class survives via a good club inter-communication system - National Championships have to be away from Dublin - Believes it's up to every club and class to contact ISA to look for help. Kids that came up through the junior scheme are the ones that are continuing - Re-introduction of logbook will encourage them to meet people from other clubs and increase the fun - Clontarf Yacht and Boat Club run an adult sailing course that encourages fun, where club members take those interested out in their own boats-some end up getting married!

Cormac Bradley- Fireball

Involved in class admin since 1985, two jurisdictions - In South Africa, sailing seen as elitist and racist. SA jurisdiction has a more tangible effort by national authority to work with the provincial authorities and clubs - Interface sadly lacking in Irish market - Difficulty with ISA at present is a lack of active engagement. Don't need to be told how to run a class, but nice to have a forum to encourage other classes to join on a common weekend where classes can sail together so clubs will/can host the event. Believe the national authority should be helping with this - Limited engagement by the ISA is neglect - Don't need hand held, but a forum helps - Clubs looking for events, classes looking for places to go - It took an AGM to get this forum together- this should be a regular item

Patrick Blaney- RSGYC; LDYC; Garrykennedy Sailing Club

We should be trying to turn people from those who try sailing, into lifetime sailors - Sailing is a broad church, which is part of the attraction but also part of the problem. Racing and dinghies are the glue that holds it together - If it isn't fun, why are we doing it? Fun = Growth - Can't go back to the nostalgic way, standards still have to be high - Real success of ISA has been an increase in competence level - His son got a high paid job in the States because our standards are so high - successes; Oppys, Lasers, SB20 - Success classes can be part of the problem - Personally a big fan of the double handed boats - Fun is the problem for the clubs and classes - The ISA's role is leadership
All aspects need to improve- the ISA needs to join up the thinking and use the volunteers and their experience

John Crebbin- Past President ISA, ISAF Council Member, Group "A" UK & Ireland

Problems being discussed are not unique - Next ISAF meeting is about the problems the respective countries are facing with promoting sailing - Sports we represent are complex, the problems and solutions are therefore complex- i.e. equipment demands are very high - Agrees that we may have lost the idea of our sport being fun - Double handed sailing increases fun and can help - Believes we have a communication issue with the ISA - Disagreed that the ISA pop-up sign was a misrepresentation of the ISA - It represents the range of essential services provided by the ISA to the whole recreational boating community. - Big fun factor is sailing - Think it's important that everyone appreciates the ISA doesn't just look after racing- it's just a focus of this meeting – John's wife looked after logbooks, checking put manners on them and encouraged truthfulness and fun -

Mirrors not successful as a result of never having been successful in penetrating sufficient international sailing nations, but believes they are a boat of fun

Brian McDowell- Malahide YC; 420 class

Brian made three key points; try to keep it fun, Try to include everybody in your activities, Try to improve coaching/training standards

Alistair Rumball- INSS

Responsibility is ISA's in part, but is also part parents and clubs - We're in the entertainment industry for 52 weeks of the year - We need to make it happen in our local area - Double-handed boats promote inter-gender cooperation too- more fun – We need a programme for 52 weeks in the year if we are to compete with other sports, not just 3!

Bríd Hickey-Skerries SC; Mirror Class

10 years ago started ferrying kids around - Financially can't afford to buy a new boat now for the kids- spent all on the mirrors - Highlighted there's a glut of mirrors in peoples' back yards - Talk to other clubs about classes you don't have - Good comment by Cormac - combining classes and junior/senior in a single series is a good way to get juniors to continue - Agreed that logbooks need to be re-introduced, encouraged it for the 2013 season - ISA needs to sit down and discuss the Pathway situation with the different associations and then for it to be well communicated to the clubs -ISA needs to work with clubs sourcing boats that are lying around - "Senior weekends" as a transition for juniors to senior

Results from feedback forms:

Harry Hermon said he had intended presenting the feedback submitted on the forms at the meeting, but due to the large numbers in attendance it wouldn't be possible, so he gave a brief snapshot of the feedback given.

The following is the full analysis of the solutions submitted on the feedback forms by those present, indicating the number of times a particular point was repeated more than once.

Training

21 Bring back logbook
8 Restructure SBSS
8 Reduce instructor training costs
7 Get rid of certificates
6 Racing requirement for instructors
5 Incorporate racing earlier in SBSS
5 Consistency of Instructor standards
4 Higher standard of instructors
4 Focus on adult training not just junior
Print standardised logbooks
Encourage instructors to keep sailing
Incorporate fun in training schemes
Find a way of extending junior training past age 15 / 16
Include requirement for two handed sailing in SBSS
Competent assessment qualification for club sailors
Remove requirement for instructor revalidation for active instructors
Separate club and sailing school syllabi to allow clubs focus on racing
Introduce spinnakers as normal part of sail training
Bring back Joe Soap weekly reports
Introduce keelboat skills in training scheme
Create transition from sailing school to club racer
Teach sailor how to fix up boats
Stop introducing new classes to ISA training with no carry over to further sailing. Topaz / Argo example

Club/Class Sailing

7 Make sailing fun
8 Reduce emphasis on single handed, promote double handed
5 Promote adult entry to sailing
4 Assist in event coordination
3 Support IODAI on rethinking green lifejacket
3 Support club/class sailors competing in international events
2 Get disused Mirrors back on the water
2 Promote Mixed Class Events
Help clubs find a way to reward racing participation, not just winning
Improve the standard of sailing at club and class level
Clubs must deliver resources and facilities which are affordable
Encourage racing in one design, team and match racing
Start racing at early age
Encourage junior sailors to crew / helm with seniors
Promote sailing for non boat owners
Encourage clubs to appoint class captain
Promote family sailing
Clubs to employ sailing professionals to coach
Encourage participation not racing
Promote boats more suited to learners
Promote dinghy sailing
Non pathway classes hold open days before nationals
Develop initiatives to encourage racing in older, cheaper boats
Club boats for non sailing families or those who can't afford
Change the proscriptive policy on selection of junior classes
Refocus on Mirror, Enterprise, Fireball
Increase RS Feva age limit by one year
Support for non Pathway classes

Communications

13 Improve communications & Knowledge sharing with clubs and classes
2 Include section on the website for second hand boat sale / exchange
2 ISA Rep visits to clubs

ISA not connected with dinghy sailing
Talk to youth sailors to get their perspective
Work with classes to raise profile
Communicate effectively with clubs and classes not direct members
Develop strategy to engage and communicate with club sailors
Assistance with social media
Have club development officer in each club to assist new members to integrate

ISA Policies

4 Encourage more volunteers to work with the ISA. Volunteer committees
3 Refocus priorities to primarily serve the interests of sailing members
3 ISA provide professional coaches/staff to visit clubs
2 ISA Board member coordinate dinghy activities
2 Encourage local clusters of clubs to sail the same classes/club pathway
2 Reduce staff numbers
Change ethos from bureaucratic administrator to hands-on service provider
Introduce second tier of Pathway classes
Introduce sailing in schools
Conduct full strategic review of ISA
Conduct full review of ISA administration
More transparency on ISA spending

Performance Pathway

3 Pathway / elite sailors should be required to coach / give back
3 Add Mirror to Pathway
Restructure the Pathway
Update Pathway to select sailors from all classes
Stop influencing clubs to support only Pathway classes
Too much focus on international events for youths
Less focus on elitist sailors
Youth Nationals should include Mirror
Promote double handed in Pathway

Paddy Maguire Concluded his part in the meeting and handed over to Harry Hermon to finish the meeting

Harry Hermon- ISA CEO
Thanked Paddy Maguire for chairing the meeting- Paddy did an excellent job and he felt the meeting had been very constructive - He was really pleased with attendance, and thanked everyone for making the effort to attend - It is rare the ISA Board and staff get opportunity to hear views directly from such a large number. He went on to pick up on a few points;
The engagement between ISA and experienced, willing volunteers has been one of the casualties of eliminating the ISA committee structure. He acknowledged engagement with members has diminished. More difficult to identify volunteers because people aren't involved in the ISA committees -Very uncomfortable with the "us and them" feeling that he's getting at the moment - Need to find a way to change this we are all working towards the same goals.
In response to the bureaucratic nature of the ISA, the ISA would love to be more hands-on - Part of ISA role is to absorb the bureaucracy so that clubs can go about business with more freedom. H&S issues, governance, legislation, child protection issues all consume office time. It isn't going to go away.
ISA's role itself - Not ISA's job to dictate to clubs/classes what activities they should organise, what type of membership to attract, what classes to run – ISA's role to advise and support, and protect the membership from outside influences. There perhaps is a need to provide more leadership on that - be careful what you wish for (reference to Patrick Blaney's statements).
Sense there is a belief that ISA and it's staff have their own agenda – this is far from the truth - following a strategy that was developed with the membership over years through consultation and working groups.
ISA is a federation of clubs the funding model and strategy is focussed on club support. He acknowledged there was a need to work more closely with classes.
Our only measure of numbers to date is national championships by class – we know there's more activity than that. Difficult to gather data on local non-championship activity - there has been a trend away from people traveling to events (cruisers and dinghies).

Where to from here?

Harry Hermon explained he would collate everything within the minutes and distribute by email back out to all present for verification by Tuesday. He would then publish the final draft of the minutes.
A report with recommendations will be submitted to the ISA Board at their next meeting, and this will also be published along with decisions made.
Harry thanked everyone for attending and contributing so constructively.
The meeting closed at 2pm.

#dinghy – A packed National Yacht Club (NYC) in Dun Laoghaire heard important contributions from clubs and classes right around the country this morning at a forum to revitalise small boat sailing and youth training. It is the first step on a new blueprint to stem falling numbers in Irish sailing.

Although the contributions varied from the reintroduction of junior log books to coaching support for senior dinghy classes, delegates were united in the view that the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) has to change tack if it wants to properly support the clubs and classes it aims to represent.

The meeting opened with a welcome from association president Niamh McCutheon who urged everyone to work together for the sport. It was followed by an overview of the problems in small boat sailing and how youth training can be made more relevant to clubs and classes by Roger Bannon, a former president of the association. Bannon has been openly critical of the association's performance in recent weeks. He told the meeting there are serious problems with Irish small boat sailing and that important changes are needed, some of them quite fundamental, to ensure the future vibrancy of our sport.

In many ways the packed club house was testament to his concerns that Irish small boat sailing is in trouble. The full extent of the problem was starkly put into focus with the publication earlier this week of information which showed an alarming decline in attendance figures at dinghy championships and falling participation in junior training schemes.

Former president Paddy Maguire, who chaired the meeting, asked attendees to make four minute contributions and they did not need much encouragement with passionate contributions from champions, instructors, youth sailors, University team racers, senior dinghy sailors, sailmakers, sailing school owners, club commodores and junior organisers.

Norman Lee,  the GP14 sailor who originally proposed the motion for change at the ISA agm a month ago said that the ISA had started its life as the Irish Dinghy Racing Association (IDRA) in 1947 but it was now so far off course it more resembled the Concordia, a reference to the ill–fated cruise liner that ended up on the rocks last year.

There were plenty of good quality suggestions for the combining of open events and even the restaging of dinghy week to reinvigorate the small boat scene.

As has been documented on Afloat.ie over the past few weeks the meeting heard a range of contributions from up to a dozen or more delegates with applause after each contribution and included observations such as:

• Numbers participating in dinghy and small one design boats are steadily declining in both youth and adult classes. There are some exceptions, mainly in older traditional classes but unfortunately, this decline represents a fundamental underlying overall trend.
• The retention rate of junior sailors in the sport, after emerging from our training schemes, is alarmingly low, at less than 10%.
• The standard of sailing and racing skills amongst juniors is in general, unacceptably inadequate and they lack even the basic skills to participate in crewed boats with multiple sails.
• The expected natural progression of youth sailors into adult classes as they mature is virtually non-existent.
• The general standard of racing and boat handling skills in most adult classes is also considerably below acceptable levels and certainly much lower than in prior decades.
• The justified emphasis placed on elite sailing has been implemented at the expense of improving standards generally and supporting international participation in non-pathway approved classes to improve skill levels.
• The quality of our training instructors is very mixed and many of them do not have the basic sailing and racing skills to train junior sailors to even a modest level of acceptable competence. It is also incredibly expensive to obtain qualifications to become an Instructor and this dis-incentivises many who might be excellent candidates.
• The ISA is not properly engaged with its members and is devoting a disproportionate share of its resources to service interests and activities which are not relevant to the vast majority of its 20,000 members. This state of affairs has emerged despite quadrupling the staff compliment compared to the late 90's and generating in excess of €2m in annual revenue. Of course it has to be acknowledged that over 50% of this is ring fenced Government funding for our excellent elite and Olympic support programs and for financial support towards the hosting of specific major international events.
• There is a universal concern that the ISA is not providing leadership on important issues which are of the most relevance to its members including its affiliated clubs, many of which are experiencing serious challenges.

For the final item attendees were asked to submit suggestions on paper in bullet point form as to how these issues can be addressed in the short and long term. It is understood over 300 suggestions were received.

The meeting ended at 1.50pm with a commitment from the ISA to distribute minutes to all attendees and to publish its report and action plan.

#isa – Two former Irish Sailing Association (ISA) Presidents are engaged in sorting out small boat sailing and youth training problems this weekend when the ISA meets at the National Yacht Club (NYC) on Saturday to address concerns first raised at the association's agm a month ago.

Former president Paddy Maguire will chair the meeting and Roger Bannon, (the president credited with the joint membership scheme that made every member of a sailing club also a member of the ISA) will present a keynote address. It is understood the meeting will then open to the floor on the problems with small boat sailing and how can youth training be made more relevant to clubs and classes.

The meeting that has drawn considerable debate on Afloat.ie follows an ISA agm motion by Norman Lee and Brian Armstrong.

The meeting is scheduled for 10.30am in the NYC, Dun Laoghaire and is expected to be concluded by 2.00 pm.

The following agenda for the day has been agreed between the ISA and Norman Lee.

The Future of Small Boat Sailing & Youth Training –  Agenda

1. What are the problems with small boat sailing and how can youth training be made more relevant to clubs and classes.

2. How can the ISA refocus to put clubs and classes at the top of its agenda?

3. How can these issues be addressed in the short term and long term?

4. AOB

#isa – Roger Bannon has a lot to say about the state of Irish sailing. The former president of the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) - and a dinghy and sportsboat champion in his own right - used his term in office two decades ago to secure the position and financial viability of the association as a national sporting authority by making every member of a sailing club in Ireland also a member of the ISA.

It was a bravo move that unified Ireland's sailing clubs into a stronger whole fit to nurture the talent necessary to challenge the world at the top levels of sailing. But in more recent times that fitness has been called into question, and Bannon is among those hitting out at an authority that has arguably lost its relevance to all bar those at the most elite levels in the sport.

"The ISA has lost its way over the last few years," he says, giving his view of a bureaucracy "detached from the reality of what is going on in the front line".

Resulting from the reforms he spearheaded in the early 1990s, the ISA became "a creature of the clubs", but he believes that the clubs have now "lost control as the professional team in the ISA grew and began to exercise increasing influence on key decisions".

Things came to a head before the recent ISA AGM, where a motion was tabled to 'shake up' ISA policy to stem the decline of dinghy sailing in Ireland. Bannon is among many in the sport - regatta organisers, commodores, champions and racers alike - who credit the decline of dinghies and one-design sailing with the national body's disproportionate emphasis on the Olympic classes. But they're not the only ones in the crosshairs.

"The clubs have also a lot to answer for in this respect," he says. "They were all mesmerised by the easy money of the Celtic Tiger era and lost sight of the value-for-money issues as well as the primary responsibility to look after their members' sailing interests."

Bannon posits the "major disruption" cause by the hosting of "too many 'status' events", and what he sees as the unjustifiably high costs of access to club facilities, as significant factors in the decline of classes such as the SB20 in Dun Laoghaire alone.

And there is "another elephant in the room", he says, referring to the financial struggles among even the biggest of Ireland's sailing clubs, many of which have been cutting fees - some even doing away with them altogether - in an attempt to attract new, younger members.

"Most clubs have worryingly ageing membership profiles which leads to less sailing activity, particularly racing," says Bannon. "This is a disturbing spiral accentuated by the fact that we are also losing nearly all the juniors who we train at great expense because our sailing curriculum is not focussed on generating a lifetime love for or a competence in the sport."

He puts this outcome squarely at the door of the ISA and its policies "both in terms of training emphasis and boat selection. This has huge structural consequences for the future viability of clubs and for the sport in Ireland."

Sailing in crisis

Bannon doesn't mince his words when he says "Irish sailing is truly in crisis". And his reasons for feeling that way are manifold.

The former ISA president references  "needless bureaucracy and expense of qualifying" as an instructor with no thorough assessment of sailing or racing capability.

He even explains the decline in the progression of juniors into senior sailing as a result of "undue anxieties about the political correctness of young people spending extended leisure time with adults .... We also largely train our kids in single-handers and they have no idea of how to sail team boats or double handed dinghies."

Such issues are of course not unique to Ireland, but Bannon says the "macro policies emanating from the ISA have certainly not helped. The clubs do not realise a revolution is under way and most are burying their heads in a nostalgia for what they believe has worked perfectly for the last 30 years."

It's reasons like this that prompted the aforementioned motion to save dinghy sailing, but one factor of a growing resentment among those who want to see Irish sailing adapt with the times - as opposed to the ISA which, Bannon says, sees "nothing wrong with the status quo" of the current top-down strategy.

"After all, despite reducing capitation revenue from the clubs, Government funding is freely available for sailing after the Olympics, the hosting of many major prestigious events and the activism of some in the ISAF."

He also criticises the "detachment" he perceives among the ISA's executives, noting that in advance of the upcoming meeting on the dinghy sailing motion on 23 March, all classes in Ireland received a letter "looking for information about attendance figures at national championships over the last five years. Surely it would be expected this kind of important data would be readily to hand in the ISA? It certainly used to be in years gone by."

Bannon says that when "this unhappiness was articulated at the recent ISA AGM, the ISA's initial reaction was to kick it down the road for a year" but that position quickly changed "when they realised the depth of feeling ... about the urgency with which this all needed to be addressed".

The message, he says, was clear: the ISA needs to refocus its priorities. And it starts with the meeting on 23 March at the National Yacht Club, at which Bannon will represent the DBSC Mermaid, and which "must be effective in changing things and redirecting our national governing sports authority to do what we require.

"After all, it is our organisation, of which we are all individual members, and to which we contribute significant financial resources personally through our clubs."

Meanwhile, there is the problem of encouraging casual sailors perhaps alienated by the ISA's professional focus to get back on the water. Bannon cities "conservative" estimates that there are "over 500 Mirror dinghies stored in garages and gardens around the country ... Will somebody explain to me why not even 20 per cent of them are being used? Talk about a lost opportunity for low-cost youth sailing."

Ultimately, he says, "we have collectively lost our way and need to seriously reassess. Too much of our effort is directed at producing international sailors while 99.9 per cent of sailors never aspire to these dizzy heights. Does this not smack of misdirected emphasis and inefficient allocation of resources?"

Leading up to the dinghy motion, Bannon has a number of questions that he wants the national sailing body to answer. "Why does the ISA devote so much energy to non-sailing-related activities?" he asks. "Why was Ireland the leading protagonist in the ISAF for the ridiculous – and fortunately aborted – decision to adopt kitesurfing as an Olympic discipline? How was this relevant to Irish sailing?"

He continues: "Why was the supplementary grant received on foot of the perceived success of the ISAF World Youth Championships spent on vehicles for ISA staff, high performance sailing support and the purchase of dinghies we never sail in Ireland?" Surely, he says, this was owed to the young sailors of this country and to the clubs who made it happen.

And there's more. "Why do we need a compliment of 14 staff to run the ISA at a payroll cost of over €650,000?" he queries.

Raising the standard

Yet while Bannon believes that the ISA is at the root of Ireland's sailing problems, he also has faith that the organisation is in a position to turn things around. First things first, he says, is to bring about a change in priorities "which is focused on addressing the needs of non-elite regular club sailors.

"This is not to diminish the importance of supporting elite and Olympic sailing. However, this has to become a subsidiary focus to the main objective of getting people sailing competently and safely in whatever boat they wish."

Bannon's view is that by raising the general standard of sailing in Ireland, this country will be more effective at producing – and retaining - a wider pool of talent to feed into elite programmes as well as populate local or non-Olympic classes.

"Good sailors attract competition and invigorate participation regardless of the type of boat," he says. "GP 14s, Fireballs, Mermaids, National 18s and SB20s are good examples of this. Look at how many ex-Mirror sailors went on to become Olympians in contrast to ex-420 sailors."

Other moves he suggests include a redesigning of junior training programmes to encourage racing, with log books reintroduced to measure and record improvement in skills, moving away from the more egalitarian methods adopted by sailing schools "which are directed at a different audience anyway".

Selection of quality sailing instructors also needs review, he argues, with a focus on seamanship skills needed for racing in all dinghies. Related to this would be appointment of full-time sailing club liaison officers with high level sailing skills and coaching qualifications "to provide coaching resources to clubs and supervise the quality of instructors on the job.

"If necessary reduce administrative staff and regional officers in preference for the appointment of club coaches and liaison officers," he continues, adding too that some of the money currently applied to ancillary activities such as PR can be put into support for specialist coaching for adult and non-approved pathway classes. "A sailor in a National 18, a Squib or a Flying Fifteen is entitled to the same access to coaching and development support as anyone else," he says.

On the same note, he believes that clubs should be able to decide what classes they wish to support for junior sailing in a non-proscriptive manner. "What's wrong with the Mirror?" he says by way of example. "There are hundreds of them available at virtually zero cost."

But above all, Bannon places his big question mark over the effectiveness of concentrated support for elite sailors.

"Being absolutely frank, despite all the expectations and effort, we have failed to produce any Olympic medallists or indeed any worthwhile performances over the last 20 years," he says. Even Annalise Murphy - whom he credits as "an enormously talented sailor" and who came so close to a bronze in the Laser Radial - comes under scrutiny. "It has to be acknowledged [her fourth place finish] was in conditions which particularly suited her."

What Ireland needs, argues Bannon, is stronger all-rounders. "A common theme among many successful Olympic sailors in other countries is their willingness to compete in domestic and international non-Olympic classes in order to get high quality competition in other boats where skill levels are high," he says. "Generally in Ireland our standards are not high in non-Olympic classes. We are not sufficiently skilled or competitive because of a lack of support and coaching.

"Until we improve our domestic standards generally, we will never produce world-class sailors capable of winning Olympic medals, regardless of extensive specialist nurturing."

For Bannon, whatever class people sail doesn't matter "as long as we get loads of people sailing with acceptable skill levels".

In advance of the the debate on the future for dinghy and one design sailing in Ireland at the National Yacht Club on Saturday, March 23rd we're keen to get your comments on this article in the box below.

#dinghydecline –Arrangements for a promised workshop to address dinghy sailing decline in Ireland is in choppy waters following a complaint the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) is 'restricting attendance' at the meeting.

The workshop follows a motion raised at the associaton's agm last week and highlighted on Afloat.ie by dinghy sailors Norman Lee and Bryan Armstrong. At the agm the ISA promised to hold a further meeting within one month. The date of this workshop was announced yesterday but Lee says its proposed format is not what was agreed.

The alleged disproportionate focus of the ISA on its Olympic sailing programmes at the expense of other aspects of the sport  is to be aired again on Saturday the 23rd of March at 10.30am in the National Yacht Club (NYC).

The meeting, says the ISA, is only open to ISA members. Attendees must pre – register and indicate the organisation they represent.

'To claim to represent a class or club, one would have to be nominated and this would reduce the eligible numbers greatly and run counter to the open invitation to all members and could lead to disputes' says Lee.

'As the proposer I will be there as an ISA member and as a committed sailing enthusiast concerned about the continuing lack of new young members joining sailing clubs and participating in club races subsequent to completing the ISA Junior Syllabus . This is something that affects dinghies and keelboats/cruisers' says Lee.

'I will not be 'Representing' the 3 clubs I am a member of [DMYC, GSS, LDYC] or the class I currently sail most often in [GP14]', Lee adds.

In a comment on this article (scroll down to see all comments below) ISA Chief Executive Harry Hermon says he 'would like to encourage as many members as possible to attend - there are no restrictions (other than we feel it is a matter for the membership to discuss) and we have received no ‘complaints’ . We asked for people to declare their organisation so we can get a feel for the representation at the meeting both regionally and in terms of their interests'.

Lee has sought a copy of the resolution referring to this meeting from the minutes of the AGM and to know how the Chairman is to be chosen. 'Obviously that cannot be an ISA employee as the meeting will be discussing matters prejudicial to them', Lee says.

Other areas of the sport such as the cruiser racing fraternity and ICRA have asked to be kept informed of the forum as the matters raised affect club memberships too, says Lee.

 This morning Lee and Armstrong issued an appeal to all sailors to get involved in the debate:

"We see that the Forum decided on at its AGM has been arranged for Saturday the 23rd March at the National Yacht Club.

"We appeal to all clubs and classes to hold meetings to consider the issues raised in our motion and in the course of the on-line discussions which have taken place both before and after the meeting and to select delegates to attend. This Forum represents an opportunity to deal with the problems in Irish sailing and to influence its future direction which cannot be missed'.

For more dinghy sailing articles:

Aggregate link to coverage of Dinghy decline debate here

David Branigan's Sailing Column in the Irish Times on this subject here

Casting a fly over sailing club memberships

Is 'Adventure Sailing' a New Tack for Dinghy Sailors?

Irish Sailing Needs this Favourable Wind

Is Irish sailing too focused on the Olympics?

#irishsailing – The winds of change are never constant and sailors are trained to expect the unexpected. It's an unpredictable sport that makes any sailor cautious about forecasting future performances.

It didn't stop the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) predicting its team would win a medal in Weymouth.

Such was the expectation that nearly anything the 2012 Olympic sailing team did other than stand on the podium would have been a disappointment.

Except that, just like the winds in Weymouth, something unexpected happened when Irish debutante Annalise Murphy led her fleet for most of the event, winning the opening four races with gusto.

It was a most welcome lift that, in the weeks following the regatta, has had many positive spin-offs for Irish sailing.

That Murphy began her campaign for Rio before even coming ashore after the disappointment of the medal race said something about the depth of her ambition. In so doing, she turned around the cruelest result of fourth into an opportunity for the future, albeit four years away.

This week she was awarded the Irish Times Sportswoman of the month for July, the latest in a line of accolades for the Rathfarnham girl.

As Murphy navigated her way through ten days of the hottest competition in her life, leading the regatta for most of it, her appeal reached beyond the traditional sailing community.

"When I saw the tricolour leading the fleet, it was like Packie Bonner's save," tweeted one of her many twitter followers. "It's Katie Taylor on water," tweeted another.

"I hope more people can understand sailing now," the 22-year-old said at a homecoming event at the National Yacht Club on Monday.

The challenge for sailing now is to capitalise on Annalise's appeal. It could not come at a better time because the domestic sport is facing 'Olympic' challenges of its own.

Because, although Ireland has posted its best Olympic result in 32 years, coming just weeks after a silver medal performance at the Youth Worlds, the domestic sport is in choppy waters.

Sailing cannot grow simply by looking towards the next Olympics as this serves only to increase the pressure on the sport's small group of high-performance athletes.

Instead, it's a question of providing more choice to grow the numbers going afloat.

Sailing is unique because it offers a strong non-competitive aspect. It's a hobby or pastime which can be enjoyed by young and old, and also by families.

If sailing can increase its numbers in these categories, then it will increase its talent pool. This, in turn, means that emerging talent which wishes to pursue the Olympic path can do so.

Today the dominant culture in sailing in Ireland is a racing one but by continuing on this tack we could be missing out on up to 80% of potential participants, says Alistair Rumball, a racing sailor, but also the proprietor of the country's biggest sailing school where recreational boating has the biggest appeal.

On Wednesday the Taoiseach Enda Kenny welcomed home the Olympic team and he made the point that future sports funding would be have a schools focus so it is important sailing gets a place on the curriculum.

Yacht clubs are struggling under the burden of a shrinking racing membership. Regatta fleets are dwindling. Just 111 boats turned up for Cork Week when there were over 500 just ten years years ago.

Some of the biggest clubs - Howth, the Royal St. George and Royal Cork to name just three - are facing tough times.

In a recession there is inevitable fallout from any sport but it's acute for sailing.

The ISA takes subscriptions from 73 sailing and powerboat clubs in the country, ranging in size from the smallest clubs with only a dozen members to the largest, the Royal St. George Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire with 1,858 members.

The total number of club members affiliated to the ISA is estimated at over 21,000. In 2010, income from club member subscriptions generated €320,843 for the ISA but in 2011 this had dropped to €286,087. A further drop might be expected this year.

There are other storm clouds on the horizon too with Minister for Sport Leo Varadkar signalling a tightening of the purse strings. This week Galway announced it was not applying for a return visit of the Volvo Ocean Race.

"Currently the sport tries to turn everyone into formula one drivers when most of us are only Sunday motorists," says sailmaker Des McWilliam, a respected sailing industry voice. "The bulk of us only want to drive to the beach not round the world," says McWilliam who believes there is a massive need to embrace a new kind of recreational sailing initiative.

Murphy has captured the public imagination but there is only so much that can be expected from a young star aiming for Rio. The challenge is to broaden the appeal of the sport and so underpin its future.

A high level forum comprising of clubs, classes and sailing schools and other interested parties could develop a national sailing strategy.

Thanks to Annalise Murphy, there's a favourable wind blowing again for Irish sailing. If sailing can adopt her fighting spirit, then the sport could find itself back on the right tack.

#olympicsailing – Last week, just as Ger Owens announced his intention to campaign a 470 for a possible third Olympic regatta the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) made a written proposal to get rid of that dinghy from the Olympic line up.

The Olympic classes are in a state of flux since the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) signalled its intent to ditch the Star keelboat for the 2016 regatta.

There is a fear too that the sport itself might be cut from the Olympic Games as pressure mounts to cut costs and athletes. It's a situation causing some countries to examine their own Olympic involvements.

There is no doubting the Olympic circuit remains the pinnacle of the sport but there's little doubt either of the appeal of new alternatives being dished up.

ISAF's own sailing world championships is gaining momentum as 'The' event to win.

From the small pool of pro-crews available in this country it's noteworthy that Ireland's Damian Foxall and Justin Slattery, found success entirely outside of the Olympic environment.

Last year, at international cruiser level, the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) brought home the Commodores Cup.

Sailing has historically had good links into the International Olympic Council (IOC), and will be making its 26th appearance in the Olympic Programme in 2012. Sailing scores well against some of the criteria to be kept as an Olympic sport, but is currently weak in other important areas such as spectator and broadcast revenue, and costs.

It has a strong European following but participation is low in Africa and Asia.

Still, 54 countries have been exercised enough to make submissions to ISAF on the 2016 Olympic sailing competition.

The loss of the Star keelboat would be a near fatal blow to Ireland's main hopes with the Peter O'Leary and David Burrows partnership seen as medal hopes next year and in 2016 too.

In its written submission the Irish authority said the mens keelboat should stay but it has also opted to keep five classes where there is no Irish sailing development.  However, this is partly because the rules do not allow for partial submissions, but require a full slate of 10 classes.

Ireland has never had a sailboard, never had a Tornado catamaran and never had a women's keelboat. We have not mustered a women's 470 team since Atlanta so it is unclear where an Irish women's skiff that the ISA has proposed is going to come from.

The ISA have proposed the following slate: Men's Board or Kite Board- Evaluation; Women's Board or Kite Board- Evaluation ; Men's 1 Person Dinghy – Laser ; Women's 1 Person Dinghy – Laser Radial  Men's 2nd 1 Person Dinghy – Finn ; Men's Skiff- 49er ; Women's Skiff- Evaluation  Men's Multihull- Tornado ; Men's Keelboat- Evaluation ; Women's Keelboat- Elliot 6m.

The reality is that domestic sailing is so far removed from these classes that some now question the pursuit of the Olympic dream at all but that's a decision that would have a major impact on government funding which heavily supports Olympic involvement.

It's too narrow to measure medals through grants alone and any withdrawal would have other consequences too.

Olympic involvement begets better standards nationally, as there is trickle back of knowledge through coaching.

The Sports Council high performance grant given to the ISA is ring fenced for Olympic sailing and its high performance programme ands runs to 400k per annum.

It's good state money that is bearing fruit at junior and youth level. Finn Lynch was second in the Topper World championships last year. Philip Doran won an under 17 Laser Radial World Championship. In the same class Olympic campaigner Annalise Murphy has also won a world under 21–title and recent performances at senior level, including a fourth in Miami in January are very encouraging.

Ireland has participated at every Games since London 1948 except Mexico in 1968. Malahide's David Wilkins and Jamie Wilkinson won Olympic silver in 1980 but since then a top eight Olympic finish in any class has eluded us.

Ireland is not alone in suggesting changes that defy historical results to the Olympic regatta, in Britain the Royal Yachting Association is proposing to ditch the Star too, a class where they have won Gold twice, and silver once in the last six games and which provides a progression path for their very successful Laser and Finn programmes.

Olympic success is counted only in medals but the sailing here has been thriving without it.

Internationally there are now other opportunities, some with more appeal. The Volvo Ocean Race (with Irish government involvement running to Euro 4 Million), the America's Cup and the World Match Racing tour now provide professional outlets for a handful of Irish sailors who might previously have only been found on the Olympic circuit.

What's important for a small sailing nation with limited resources is a plan that can bring home results, even if this means moving outside the Olympic circle.

#dinghydecline – The current debate regarding dinghy racing is fascinating (See original article and reader comments here). At present the discussion is centred around the role of the national authority. However, I believe that as the debate develops we will be asking as many questions of the clubs as of the ISA.

What is a sailing club for? The question is not often asked, because for most people the answer is obvious... until they realise that other members are giving very different answers. For some a club is a place where they can socialise with like-minded people, while also providing some facilities to assist them in maintaining and using their boat (the bar and the boatman being the heart of the club). At the other extreme, many Continental and American clubs believe that they exist to provide sailing, which includes boats, for the local and visiting populations. As such they run large fleets of dinghies and keel boats.

The current debate questions whether the ISA does enough to keep the numerous apprentice sailors within the sport of sailing, and in particular orientating them towards racing in dinghies. Unfortunately, whilst many statistics have been bandied about (and I note that Bryan Armstrong's estimate of a core of some 300 young racing sailors corresponds with my estimate given in a previous article, based on the number of students team racing) I have yet to see the essential figure: how many sailors move from beginner to being able to sail a boat round a triangular course in, say, a Force 3. These are the teenagers and adults that could be attracted to club racing in dinghies or small keel-boats.

In an ISA approved training centre these beginners will have reached this level using the boats, and often wetsuits, life-jackets and other gear provided (this may not be true in some club-run training programmes). Beginners will be in a group led by a qualified instructor who structures activities in light of his student's progress. They are only committed to a course lasting a few days and proceed to the next level only if they wish to do so.

What are clubs asking of these same beginners who arrive waving their still new ISA certificates? If the answer is:

take out annual membership;

buy a boat, and all the gear;

pay the club for boat storage;

be expected to sail most weekends in the club;

commit to"volunteering" to run racing and other club activities;

just like all the more experienced members, then it is little wonder that very few beginners take up this offer. These should be objectives not expectations.

Managing this transition from sailing school pupil to active club sailor is increasingly complicated, and should be a major preoccupation for all clubs. "Sailing families" will have already adjusted their life-style and family budget. The group disparagingly known as "Oppie parents" (a group not limited to that particular class) will make great sacrifices, in both time and money, to take their children sailing. But a teenager who may be the only family member interested in sailing will face multiple obstacles. For the new-comer a sailing club can be an off-putting place.

Not the least of these obstacles is the change in the way we allow our children to interact with other adults. Imagine, for instance, the child protection issues raised by any development of dinghy sailing based on young people crewing for adults. This was the traditional method for gaining experience and learning the game, many of us learned this way. Times have changed – I am not sure that many parents today would be happy about their child spending long hours with an un-vetted adult on a small boat, let alone spending a weekend away for an open meeting or championship.

Assisting apprentice sailors in this passage from learner to participant is a process that may take as much time and effort as teaching sailing. Up to now we have assumed that if someone learns to sail they will become a full participant in an existing model of sailing club. Regrettably, there is considerable evidence that this is not happening. New sailors, young and old, need to be brought at their own pace in to our clubs. Doing this successfully will ensure the future of clubs, but will inevitably induce changes in the way clubs function.

Take a model common in France, and elsewhere in Europe: after completing a cursus in the club sailing school, sailors join the club "sport school". Here, with a combination of training and appropriate competition, sailors learn not only the techniques and the tactics, but also the discipline required to succeed. They are assisted as they discover the commitment required to race regularly, they develop the habit of competing, of travelling to events, and so much more. As they are competing with other sailors of the same age and experience there is no arms race. Indeed, as the teenagers will soon move on to another boat, as they grow and improve, logically the boats belong to the clubs.

Only when sailors have reached a suitable level do they join the regatta circuit. One feature of racing in Europe, that may seem strange to Irish club members, is that club racing is not a central activity. Dinghy and keel-boat sailors either train with a club coach or sail at open meetings. The idea of racing once a week in your local club is not part of the culture. Is it possible that one problem in Ireland is that there is too much racing? If every weekend confirmed sailors are competing for club trophies when do they train, and, more importantly, when do they spend time assisting new sailors.

Running a transition programme may be a complicated exercise for clubs. Financing the acquisition and the maintenance of a fleet of suitable boats is a challenge. The ISA could contribute by setting up a training programme in basic boat maintenance, that should be compulsory for instructors and coaches. But clubs have taken up this challenge. For instance, two very different organisations have long maintained fleets of dinghies for team racing – the FMOEC in Schull and the Royal St George YC. This year the Sailfleet J80s will be managed by a single club. The Dun Laoghaire waterside clubs are gradually acquiring a fleet of keel-boats. These initiatives should lead other clubs to reflect and develop their own projects. The emergence of such projects will inevitably lead to new demands on our national authority, who, as always, should play a major role in facilitating new developments - Magheramore

For more dinghy sailing articles from Magheramore see:

Casting a fly over sailing club memberships

Is 'Adventure Sailing' a New Tack for Dinghy Sailors?

More articles on the same subject:

Irish Sailing Needs this Favourable Wind

Is Irish sailing too focused on the Olympics?

#dinghy – Dinghy sailing affairs dominated Saturday's ISA agm (March 2nd 2013) with a motion seeking a change in policy to stem the decline in participation from Wicklow's Norman Lee and Sligo's Bryan Armstrong. The pair outlined problems ranging from the standard of instructors to lack of logbook requirements. As previously reported on Afloat.ie the motion has led to a meeting within the month of all clubs and classes to take the next step toward rekindling dinghy sailing.

There are 40 plus comments in our earlier story on the subject here and below is Bryan Armstrong's Presentation to Saturday's meeting in full.

"When I was thinking about what I would say at this meeting I was expecting that I would be facing a hostile audience and that people might think, at the end of a year when there was much to celebrate in Irish Sailing, that putting down this motion was a disloyal thing to do, even an act of begrudgery.

Since then we have had this wonderful on line discussion both on the ISA site and on the Afloat site and I must admit to my surprise at the level of support we have received. We seem to have struck a chord of dissatisfaction among the dinghy sailing community. Many of the things I would have wanted to say have been said, and perhaps better than I can. I hope that when this is over someone will take these contributions and try to distill out the great ideas that are there.

You will all know Norman and his wife Una (who was JO in LDYC for many years) but since I do not often appear in the higher echelons of sailing politics I am conscious that many may not actually know who I am and why I feel what I do, and how we got here.

I had the privilege of having been taught to sail as a teenager by, at Sligo Yacht Club, which is near where I grew up and still live, in Rosses Point. About 1970 my father bought us a Mirror kit and my brother and I bashed it together over two weeks in an upstairs bedroom. The boat was a mess and we were never very good as mirror sailors anyway but we had an awful lot of fun.

Now I sail and race an old GP14 (which is what you do in Sligo – the club has a one design policy). I'm still not great at it but I still have fun.

In the early 2000s my kids started Mirror sailing and I became a member of the Mirror Class Committee in 2004 after the Europeans in LDYC, a superb event run under the Chairmanship of Patrick Blaney. Anyone who was there will remember the thunderstorm. There were 84 Irish boats entered in a fleet of 120.

The following year we went to the Mirror Worlds in Ostersund in Sweden. A big Irish team of went and brought back lots of Silverware, including the World title.

Any junior sailing fleet looses members after a big event. The older sailors stay on for it and then move on when its over. Suddenly the Mirrors began to loose members very rapidly and although we didn't really notice it for a while, the replacements did not seem to be appearing. Looking back on it, I think the reasons were:--

➢ ISA dropped logbook requirement, a subject to which I will be returning.

➢ ISA actively promoted another class to the exclusion of the Mirror and made it very clear that Mirrors were not favored.

➢ The Mirror was perceived to be old fashioned and outdated.

Suddenly, Mirrors were not "cool". There is no fate worse than that in the teenage market we needed.

This was of course reflected in the IMCAI Committee and I became chairman in 2007, as a kind of last man left standing (almost). At times I was fearful that the association would collapse altogether, but the prospect that I might be the last Chairman was very incentivizing. We managed to stem the flow until the new Winder design became available – we bought two as demonstration boats (very nice: have a look sometime) - and tried some new ideas such as an annual "Bronze Fleet" event, confined to bronze fleet sailors.

Now, by the very poor standards which this motion is an attempt to address, we are doing at least as well as the others, arguably better.

I saw the opportunity to get the 2010 Mirror Europeans back to Sligo & went after it and succeeded. There were 54 Irish boats entered. Ross Kearney (now working for Pinnell & Bax sailmakers), took the title.

We had spent a lot of time during the Europeans making the UK contingent feel welcome. We do that in Sligo with visitors. Actually they had a ball.

Shortly after that event I got a phone call from the Secretary of the UK Class Association to the effect that the 2013 Mirror Worlds were up for grabs and that he would support an application from Sligo. I said yes definitely and put in a proposal. This led to the event being awarded to Ireland, with the Irish Association to decide on the venue. They put it out to tender and I had my eye wiped by LDYC, but that's ok. They will make a fine job of it and I get to relax in Drumineer while someone else does the work.

This is why the Mirror Worlds are there next summer. As I speak, 13 teams are down on Lough Ree being coached for the event by Ger Owens with, I regret to have to say, no support at all from ISA.

I am telling you all this so that you will understand that Norman and I are serious people who have been around dinghy sailing issues and specifically junior sailing for a long time and I suggest that we know what we are talking about.

We have both been deeply frustrated at what we perceive as a long slow decline in the sport which has as its root cause bad policy decisions taken at ISA level. As you can see from the forums, we are not alone in this.

The trigger for the motion we have put forward was the Consultation meeting held by ISA in Sligo last autumn. Although I am less involved with the Mirrors now, I received an invitation to this which said that among other things it was to:

Discuss how the ISA can improve its support & services to organisations.

Since, in my opinion, the Mirror organisation gets no support at all from ISA, it wasn't going to be too difficult to suggest how it might be improved. I went along and we heard a presentation from the ISA officers. To be fair, much of it was very good.

However, I never see any point in going to a meeting and not saying whatever it is I have to say. I and indeed Niall Henry then SYC commodore raised much of what is now in our motion, but did not feel that we were getting much traction.

The report issued shortly afterwards and frankly, I found the report dismissive of the concerns raised and was not pleased. I prepared a document with the intent of provoking debate in some way that I had not worked out and sent it to Norman and Una and asked them what they thought about it and whether I was just making a fool out of myself. Their response was that they wanted to be part of this and Norman later talked me into seconding our motion here today.

THE MOTION

Before begin talking about the Motion itself I think we need face some realities and to put aside some of the PR & spin that has been put out over the past 10 days or so and have an open and factually based, honest debate. It's always dangerous when an organisation starts believing its own PR.

The truth is that, if measured in terms of numbers active, Irish Dinghy sailing and arguably Irish sailing generally is in big trouble. Fleet numbers are very small and many classes seem close to falling below the critical mass necessary for survival. If Harry Hermon and the Members of the ISA board really believe that the 12,000 trainees from last or any recent year are really "staying with the sport" and playing swallows and amazons somewhere around Irish sailing clubs then this organisation is so seriously out of touch with reality that one would have to despair of any prospect of dealing with our problems.

To discuss the motion I need to break it down into its separate elements. The first is:-

"That the meeting recognises that that the current policies being followed by the ISA are causing or contributing to the decline in numbers participating in dinghy racing by:-

Has there been a decline in Dinghy Racing?

Mirror events in the 1990s could well attract 120 boats or even more. (See Garth Craigs contribution on the ISA forum. At GP 14 events maybe 80. The IYA (as it then was) Dinghy week in Baltimore in the 1980s caused the water supply to the entire town to fail. Ironically, as I remember it, the reason Dinghy Week was stopped was that it was getting bigger than any Club could handle.

Over this time there has been a huge improvement in the technology of boats and gear. Road access through the country was never better. We have even had an economic "boom". All of this should have caused an increase in dinghy sailing. Instead there has been as steady decline. No class today can come close to the numbers of 20 years ago and even all of the classes of today combined cannot match them.

We say that current ISA policies are a critical issue and are at least, contributing to the decline.

➢ "Failing to structure the Association's sail training schemes so as to encourage as far as possible the continued participation of young participants in the sport, so as to make sailing a "sport for life"."

Obviously the success or failure of any policy has to be viewed against whatever objective the policy is designed to achieve. Certainly if the Sail training scheme is designed to maximise the participation rates and have the children enjoy themselves in a safe environment then clearly the ISA sail training courses are doing very well. According to the figures put up by Harry Hermon some 12,000 kids participated in ISA sail training in 2012.

If however the purpose of the scheme is to attract people to the sport on a long term basis the consensus and the evidence seem to be that it is failing badly. The question arises, if it is training, what is it training for?

Prior to the Sligo meeting I tried to do some investigation into the number of children and teenagers actually participating in competitive sailing. As there are several factors involved and different levels of participation, that's not totally simple. What I did was go to the websites of the various classes involved and looked at the numbers entered in their National Championships and I came up with the following figures. I realise that they give an incomplete picture but in the absence of anything else they are sufficient to make my point. I find it interesting that the ISA itself does not seem to have figures.

Lasers mixed fleet but 78 young
Oppies not totally clear from site but 160
(I understand that 30 of the 190 entered were from the UK
RS Feva 21 boats 42
Topper 48
Topper Topaz mixed fleet 34
Mirrors 30 boats 60
420 16 boats 32

Total 454

The reality may be even bleaker. Many fleets are going to clubs known to have good numbers locally. E.G 23 of the 28 boats in the Topaz fleet came from the host club.
It is generally believed that 80 to 90 % of Oppie sailors do not sail again after they leave the class.

Correct for those factors, and I would guess that after Oppies the core number of teenagers prepared to travel to an event would be less than 300.

What is happening today in children's sailing is that apart from the handful who do take up racing, they are attending the courses for the few weeks of the summer and are not seen again until the following summer. Then when they finish they are not seen at all.

In a way, they are not meant to be seen again because Irish sailing at the moment could not cope with numbers like that. Where would we get the boats and the RIBs to mind them?

If kids don't race then they don't sail. There is only one thing you can do with a racing dinghy: race it. If there was doubt about this, the safety issue nails it. You can't let kids go off sailing on their own without supervision, and that is only provided in a racing contest.

The strangest aspect of the ISA response to me is the notion which comes across that kids don't want to race – that its a hardship on them to "force" (Harry Hermon's word) them to do so.

I don't believe that it is a hardship and I am not suggesting that anyone be forced to do anything. It's a matter of meeting a standard. You don't force a teenager to study for the Leaving Cert, but if they don't, they won't pass.

In fact I consider that that ability to take a boat out onto the water, sail it around and bring it back in, powered only by the wind, is alone an awesome skill for any kid to have.

However, I also believe one design dinghy racing is a sublime sport combining physical and intellectual, and organisational skills and much more as well. I consider that it was a very great privilege for me to have been given the gift of learning how to do it, however badly. It has for me been a sport for life and I can think also of some of the elder statesmen of the sport, like, Louis Smyth still sailing his Fireball and Sligo's own Gus Henry still very hard to beat in his homemade and very beautiful GP14.

Racing is also the only way to get sailors to actually go sailing. We are a competitive species. It's just the way we are. You could after all play golf alone or with a partner and not keep a score. Who actually does that? We need the little edge that competition brings.

The problem is that sailboat racing is very complicated. A kid can be given a football or a hurley stick or a tennis racket and be sent off with instructions not to be late home for tea. This is not possible with sailing because measures have to be taken to ensure that they actually come home at all.

It also requires a boat and loads of gear to protect from the elements. These things are expensive (although there are ways and means). Proper race management requires ribs, committee boats and serious infrastructure.

I see it as a series of thresholds. The first is the basic safety one that ensures that those who go out, actually come back. The sailing courses do achieve this and games like swallows and amazons are a useful tool for getting small children over the safety threshold.

The second threshold is perhaps the ability to compete in a race and finish the course. As of now the kids are not required to do even that.

The third is when the competitor begins to understand what is going on in the race and the realisation comes that there is more to this than meets the eye. A whole panorama of issues like windshifts, tides, boat tune and tactics opens up. It takes time and commitment for the sailor to get this far. No-one said dinghy racing was easy, but it is very, very good.

I don't see that giving the little push that a logbook gives is "forcing" the young sailor. I see it as bringing the opportunity to learn the sport.

I have watched enough young people sailing to know that those who race get much better than those who do not (if they sail at all) and those who do events outside their clubs get much better than those who stay at home. Huge exchanges of knowledge take place at events, both from kids to kids and from parents to parents.

At the Sligo meeting when we were having this argument Tony Wright said that he would not "put that" (meaning an obligation to travel to outside events) on families. I acknowledge fully that it can be onerous for parents and I have myself spent many Sunday afternoons packing boats in the rain. Sailing does require a lot of parental support but the other side of the coin is that for me anyway great times have been had around Mirror events and there is great bonding with ones children.

This is what the ISA Report on the consultative meetings says on the issue:

Why does the ISA not encourage young sailors within the small boat sailing scheme to race in Regional and National Championships?

When the current small boat sailing scheme was introduced we included modules within the syllabus to accommodate those youngsters who are not competitive and who were dropping out of the scheme. Within the current syllabus there is a pathway for all interests (racing and non racing).

Now they are all dropping out and if there is a pathway, very few are taking it. The decision of the ISA in the early 2000s to take the focus of the curriculum off racing to where I know not, has been an absolute disaster and the numbers are proving that. A huge generation gap has opened up in the sport and it is directly related to that decision.

➢ The system produces 'Instructors' who put no value on participation in club activities, continue to see themselves as 'Juniors' and have not been exposed to 'Senior' fleet sailing. Experience shows that those that have participated in 'senior' racing in their teens are much more likely to continue sailing or come back at a later stage.

The instructor problem is of course a logical follow on from the previous one.

For the kids, qualification as a sailing instructor provides status and the ability to earn good wages in a very pleasant environment. It's a great way to spend the summers for a third level student. It gives responsibility in a controlled environment and it's very maturing. In principle it should be very advantageous in keeping them connected with the clubs and in the sport generally. Much of the training is very good, although very expensive (and I do not see the need for so much revalidation).

The problem is that with the way things have gone over the past few years, there is a large cohort of instructors who simply cannot sail properly. During the last week I learned of two young people who are planning to qualify as instructors. Both are very nice kids and will bring a lot to it. They have come up through the ISA scheme and have all their levels. One turns up for club racing no more than once a season and has never done an away event. The other got a boat for the first time at the end of last year, shows promise but is in no way ready to be an instructor. Neither can sail properly, and could not go out on a windy day themselves, never mind while looking after children on the water.

I have to assume that they will qualify because I have seen several worse sailors qualify. Some clubs (we do in Sligo) try to make instructors actually sail and race, but these are often children of prominent members. They arrive with their qualifications and expect to be employed. What is a club to do?

➢ Failing to provide necessary support and encouragement to clubs and classes associations in all parts of the Country for the provision and continuation of well managed and competitive dinghy racing at club and national level.

I suppose that this can be broken down into support for clubs and support for class associations. I have spent the past two years as a member of the committee of the Sligo Yacht Club. I cannot say that the ISA has been hugely relevant to what we do. This may vary from club to club. I cannot really say.

I do however have a general sense that the smaller clubs could use more support.

Many of the contributions on the forum came from Class Associations or people prominent in them. They seem unanimous that they get little or no support. For the Mirrors I can say that they get none.

At the Sligo meeting Harry Hermon said that he accepted that their relations with Class Associations could be better. He will remember the exchange. I said I had to agree with him. He said that it was good that we agreed on something. I started my usual rant about the many Mirrors sitting unused around the Country. I said a campaign to get them back into use backed by the ISA would be a good start. Here is an extract from the report that followed these meetings:-

There are an estimated 500 serviceable Mirror Dinghies in the country not being sailed, why doesn't the ISA develop an initiative to bring them back into commission?
The ISA's strategy is to develop the sport through the club structures, and the funding model reflects this. As such the ISA operational focus is to support the development of the clubs. We acknowledge the ISA does not perhaps maximise the potential the classes have to offer in respect of developing the sport, however the ISA's policy is to encourage partnerships between clubs and classes. The class associations have the responsibility for developing activity within their own class.

No great sign of a new initiative there.

Clubs run club racing and host national events. Class associations promote the boats that sail in those club races and national events. The ISA is a national organisation which is or should be the umbrella group under which it all happens. Each party need the other. Why cannot they work together in a coherent way for the benefit of the sport?

It is very clear that this is not happening

➢ Emphasising the training of selected juveniles by the creation of elite squads of possible future Olympians, without proper regard to the interests of those failing (for whatever reasons) to meet that standard or who are not able or cannot afford to give the time or family/financial commitment and who are thereby discouraged and lost to the sport.

Norman and I are not against the Olympic campaign. I might argue that there is a need for some proportionality : it only happens every four years and only one of the classes of boat is actually sailed in this country.

Neither is it about the money. In the Mirrors we weren't actually stuck for money (until I got at it and bought the two Winders).

I get how the Pathway scheme is supposed to work. You take a group and work with it with more and more resources and pair them down progressively and the theory is that the ones that emerge at the top are very good indeed. Judged alone by the results, it seems to be doing well. However, national championship turnouts of 16 420s and 22 Fevas – both pathway classes - give no great confidence that all is well for the future.

The problem is that only a small minority will ever get there. As matters stand, the others drop off and are lost. Why do so many Oppie sailors never sail again? These are children who know how to sail. Is the pressure too much?

Personally I would prefer to see a small child at the front end of a Mirror with a bigger sibling or friend rather than alone in a Oppie, but I would say that, wouldn't I?

What I can say without fear of contradiction is that this scheme has done serious damage to the Mirrors who have been excluded. The logic of their exclusion is lost on me. Why would you take a class with regular 100+ fleets and cast it aside like that? A very different attitude is taken in the UK. At last years Europeans in Poole a small Irish Group was faced by a UK team with 3 wholetime coaches with ribs etc. I expect them all over to LDYC in the summer and the Australians and the South Africans, and the Irish are left to their own resources.

If we must have a pathway scheme it needs to be (at least at the early stages) much more inclusive. Kids develop at different rates anyway. Also, there must be an attractive option for those who don't stay with it.

➢ And that ISA refocus on the original Objective set out in article 2 of its Memorandum of Association, which is ' to promote the amateur sport of sailing in Ireland' and amend its policies and practices to address the matters referred to."

This is a direct quote from the Memorandum of Association of the ISA. Harry Hermon has pointed out in one of his submissions that the articles were amended in 2006 to define sailing as including the sport of sailing wind surfing and leisure boating in all its branches whether under sail or power.

Is it a coincidence that what we see as the rot started around 2006? Norman & I make no apology for our interest in the sport of sailing meaning boats powered by the wind and this is what we want the ISA to refocus on. How exactly this should be done is a big subject and very useful suggestions are set out in the contributions to the two forums. It clearly requires much thinking and planning and I would hope that much may yet emerge from the discussion which I hope will follow at this meeting and as we go forward.

I do recognise that there is another side to this coin and that there are issues on the racing scene that need to be addressed so as to eliminate as far as possible the disincentives. There is much work to be done on this.

As a first step, to demonstrate to the ISA that there is a problem, that it has lost its direction and that something must be done about it, I ask your support for our motion here today".

#dinghydecline – A meeting of clubs and classes is to be held within the month to decide on the next step for Irish dinghy sailing after yesterday's proposals were heard to stem decline in the sport at the Irish Sailing Association (ISA) agm in Dun Laoghaire.

With a presentation from dinghy sailors Norman Lee and Bryan Armstrong, the 80-strong meeting heard the case for a change of tack in dinghy policy, a motion that had already drawn considerable debate on Afloat.ie last week.

Following a presentation there were contributions from the floor but the process was hurried and there was also disagreement as to what the motion actually meant for the ISA and how the meeting should proceed.

There were calls from the floor for a vote before a proposal that a day long workshop for clubs and classes should be convened within one month to take the matter further. This was adopted by common consensus on a show of hands with no dissenters.

There were no comments or questions on the President's report or financial statements which showed association revenues hitting €2million for the first time.

Olympic race officer Jack Roy was elected to the ISA board replacing Alan Crosbie.