I cannot imagine what went into making this decision, and would never try. I’m sure that the leadership of ICSA had good intentions, but it is still a problem. This decision effectively means that no championship will be held on the west coast. Here we all sail FJ’s. Every single school sails the same boat so that we can move boats from site to site. In order for a school to get the opportunity to host a championship they must do one of three things: A) be rich enough to own two fleets of boats, so that leaves Stanford and USC, everyone else, sorry about your luck. No more races in Irvine, no racing in the Columbia River Gorge, no racing in Seattle. B) simply decide to only race on the East Coast because they cannot compete in FJ’s. or C) Convince every school in PCIYRA and NWICSA to spend money that almost none of them have and dump hundreds of FJ’s onto a non-existant market and buy 420’s. As for MCSA? Forget it. I know that the East Coast doesn’t go to sail in Chicago, Madison, Ann Arbor much, but those teams are going to be terribly hard pressed to go out and spend tens of thousands to buy boats in the hopes of getting a fleet. I have no idea how it will happen. Part of Collegiate Sailing has ALWAYS been the challenge of sailing new boats and accommodating quickly. MIT sailed Larks, Tufts modified them for their Mystic Lake, Michigan sailed 470’s and Navy had everyboatevermadebyanyone. Just as much as having to sail in Charleston’s current today, handle the insane windshifts at Harvard next week, and avoid powerboats at UCI the following week is part of the game, so is dealing with the fact that boats aren’t all the same (and neither btw are NHL rinks). Finally, from this perspective, how would feel if you did play Basketball, in say Los Angeles, and suddenly the NBA commissioner said “Hey Lakers, we are going to change the ball, but there is no way on earth you can use it except when you come and play the Celtics”? I don’t ascribe bad intent to the ICSA executive committee, but it feels from the West Coast that the powers that be just tightened their grip on the game again.
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