Nick Grael’s Point of View

by Nicholas Grael

Hello!

I wanted to express my opinion regarding the changes in 2020 and 2021 major regattas.

First of all, I totally agree with the postponement of all 2020 regattas due to our global situation.

I just wanted to raise three different points about this stuff:

1st: I don´t agree with postponing the 2021 Worlds in Japan to 2022. This will cause a series of problems, for example: we will always have the snipe worlds on olympic years, which will be terrible for olympic sailors that are also sailing snipes. I believe that if Japan has no conditions of organizing the 2021 worlds because of the Olympics postponement, even though they change their dates or the sailing venue from Enoshima to another one, they shouldn´t receive this edition of the Worlds. My suggestion: 2021 Worlds in Portugal, right after the Junior Worlds.

2nd: I didn´t agree with the decision that was taken of separating the junior and senior worlds. I also raised this subject with all snipe junior sailors that I know, and everybody was totally against this decision. Regarding number of boats and level, we had great Junior Worlds in Rio 2013 and even better in Talamone 2015, and not so good in Coruña 2017 and even worse in Ilhabela 2019 for some reasons that I can explain on a separate article, because I was present on all these events. But postponing 2021 snipe junior worlds in Portugal would be even worse because many people would have the limit age in 2021 and won´t have in 2022, and I don´t see any reason for postponing a regatta next year, while we still have no idea how the situation will be in one year from now.

3rd: I believe that WHO regatta, Europeans, and the other regattas, should still be called 2020 WHO and 2020 Europeans, even though they are happening in 2021. This is how the Olympics are dealing with this, with Tokyo 2020 happening on 2021, and this is how the Star class might do, I believe. This is important because it interferes on sponsorships budget, financial support for sailors, etc. And also in a bunch of years from now, when we look back at the champions of these events, it will make much more sense to have these regattas named 2020.

Sorry for this long article, I know the decisions were taken, but I wanted to express my opinion and make you aware of these points!

Best regards and hope to get back sailing soon,

Nick Grael