A View From the Back

For beautiful January sailing, few venues beat Biscayne Bay.  Seventy degree water and air temps, and beautiful green water make for a dinghy sailor’s paradise during the dreary winter months!  Throw in 400 plus of the most competitive sailors from around the world, and you get stop number two on the ISAF World Cup, Miami OCR.   Not the cheapest event by a long shot, but you get a lot of seriously intense sailing for your money.  And a pasta dinner  – and T-shirt… 

One of my first impressions from the event was that US Ailing – or at least the part of the organization that puts on the OCR –  can be extremely focused and proactive when they want to be.  This was an extremely high level event, with resources allocated for 320-odd boats crammed into a small area, and it went very smoothly.  Makes you wonder why the hell they haven’t been able to sort out a decently functioning website in the past decade or actually make sure everybody’s new rule books actually show up.  It’s pretty obvious where their priorities lie – not with the average American sailor.  Personally, I took a lot away from this event; great sailing, great competition, a great time – but I can’t help but feel if this much effort was put into making all sailing events across America so successful, the mandatory membership idea would never have been floated – people would be lining up to join.