Messing About In Sailboats

Wish Team USA Luck!

The Paralympic Regatta starts on September 1st. Send Paul and the other US Paralympic Sailing Team, Jennifer, Tom, JP,Bradley and Mark your best wishes in the comments below.

Go Team USA

You can wish them luck by posting a comment here

via paulcallahanusa.typepad.com

Wind Map - Seriously Cool

You have to check out Wind Map. It's an insanely cool graphic depiction of the wind. You should visit it NOW as Isaac peters out

Sailing Photo Of The Day - River Fowey

America's Cup World Series San Francisco - Final Day

Photo: LUNA ROSSA/ Carlo Borlenghi

Show Your Support For Paul Callahan And The US Paralympic Sailing Team

The US Paralympic Sailing Team are in Weymouth preparing for the Games to begin. Eighty athletes will be competing in the 2012 Paralympic Sailing Regatta, starting on September 1st.

The US has a promising team, including Paul Callahan, skippering the 3-person Sonar. I got to know Paul over the last few months and I am helping him out with a blog. You can get to know Paul and keep tabs on his preparations and the team's progress over the Games.

Paul is an extraordinary guy. He was paralyzed in a freak accident in college. This would have devastated most people both mentally as well as physically but Paul overcame huge adversity to attend Harvard Business School, followed by a successful career in banking. He has a wonderful family and lives a frantically active life shuttling between Florida and Newport, RI.

One of Paul's greatest passions is sailing. I can't even begin to list Paul's, achievements in sailing. I wish I had a fraction of the sailing talent that Paul has. See the blog for the full story.

In addition to sailing competitively, Paul is the CEO of Sail To Prevail. This remarkable organization helps thousands of disabled kids and adults experience sailing. The impact this has had on the lives of the people it touches is incredible.

I hope you will show your support for the Paralympians and follow Paul and the US Team.

Sailing Photo Of The Day - Toe In the Water

Some boats have great stories behind them. Toe In the Water is an inspiration. "It's about adapting to the challenge, not the challenge adapting to you". Thisi's why we sail.

London 2012 Olympics were amazing but now I must pursue my America's Cup dream - Telegraph

The America’s Cup is a mystery to most non-sailing fans; an unfathomable mix of big money, big yachts and messy politics. In fact, given the shenanigans of the past few years, it is pretty confusing even for those in sailing who would like to follow it more closely.

via www.telegraph.co.uk

Big Ben explains his AC plans.

Irish Olympic Sailing Commentary (NSFW)

Sixth Blogaversary

Today this blog is six years old. I can't believe it lasted six month. Here's to six more.

US Sailing Needs A Bigger Vision

Like many in the US, I am scratching my head wondering how the US sailors could have done so badly in The Olympics. It was tragic to see a sailor of Anna Tunnicliffe's caliber, in tears after being knocked out in the Quarter Final of the Match Racing.

The leadership of US Sailing announced that a review into went wrong will be immediately undertaken. In retrospect it should not have been  a surprise.  Expectations for medals did not seem especially high – a few “maybe in with a chance” at best. Knowing how strong the Brits, Australians and Kiwis were, in addition to some other individual superstars, the US had an outside chance of winning anything much.

For a country that has such a great sailing heritage this is unacceptable.  The review is long overdue. There are dozens of different reasons why the US is failing in Olympic sailing. You only need to look at Team GB to see that they are in a different league.

This excellent article in the Guardian explains how Team GB went from winning two silver medals in 1996 to dominating the medals in Beijing and winning 5 medals in London. I suspect Team GB expected better. In fact, had three medal races gone better, three of the silvers would have been gold.

If you go back twenty years, UK sailing looked like US sailing now – a third-tier sport ran in a well-intentioned but amateur way on a shoe-string budget. Expectations were low and results met those expectations.

The watershed event was the creation of the UK Lottery and a massive jump in funding.  According to the BBC, Team GB Sailing received close to $30 million for London 2012 and can expect the same for Rio. In addition, Team GB has a major sponsor in Skandia (the finance house) and five additional sponsors plus a fleet of “official suppliers”. By comparison, the US Olympic Team receives $0 in government funding. While US Sailing has a longer list of sponsors, few of them have the clout and deep pockets of Team GB's sponsors. US Sailing starts at a major disadvantage in terms of funding.

It's a virtous cycle. As Team GB does well, it maintains its Lottery funding and attracts more outside cash. If Team GB had not delivered in sailing, the money would have evaporated.

But it’s not all about money. Team GB has an extraordinarily sophisticated system, designed to build a sustainable pipeline of medal winners.  The funding supports a squad of 70 full-time sailors organized into three sections – the development squad for younger sailors just finding their feet, the transitional squad and, finally, the performance squad who compete for Gold.

One of the many benefits of a big squad is that they are always practicing competitively. Imagine what it’s like to be a young sailor who sails against the likes of Big Ben on a regular basis.  The sailors are held to a high standard and their performance is evaluated every three months. If they are not up to it, they are dropped which sounds ruthlessly un-British.

This team is supported by a small army of coaches, medics, physios, nutritionists, psychologists, managers, etc. These guys manage the details with extraordinary care to ensure that their athletes are ready to win. They even have a falcon to keep the nasty seagulls away at night that might prevent the salty heroes from having a good night’s kip.

Oh, and lets not forget, the excellent UK Sailing center in Weymouth. Clearly something the US is desparately lacking.

I could go on but you have the gist of it. US Sailing needs a massive injection of cash that wil fnd the creation of a system designed to get the US Team winning.

Most importantly US Sailing needs a bigger and better long-term vision, greater ambition and a plan to deliver on this.

There a million reasons why this can't be done but the US is a country that overcomes obstacles and delivers beyond expectations in so many fields. It's about time, this happens in sailing.