GELFAND’S WORLD - Here’s a riddle: What Olympic class event depends critically on where you hold it? And let me remind you that in the recent World Cup competition, every field was constructed to be as close as possible to being identical to every other field. The elements of track and field, gymnastics, and rifle shooting are constructed according to rigid specifications. So where and what happens in the Olympics that depends critically on where you hold it?
Here’s a hint: The ocean.
Olympic sailing is the answer.
We were reminded that the Olympics are now less than two years off the other day. Some of us had gathered at the L.A. Yacht Club for a meeting. As we were chatting, a group of young, fit-looking people began to gather. The next hint was that they were wearing shirts that identified them as members of the U.S. Sailing Team.
Molly Vandemoer introduced herself. It turns out that she is the newly appointed director of the U.S. team effort. She competed for the U.S. in a previous Olympics.
Ian Anderson is a team coach. In conversation, he explained that he coaches the Nacra 17 class of boats. It turns out that this class is a catamaran (two hulls) with one even more surprising feature. The Nacra 17 has what are essentially like airplane wings, but underwater – they provide lift, so the boat rises out of the water a bit, which makes it go faster. And it was already pretty fast.
Here’s a link to that class of boat.
Ian introduced us to Sophie Fisher, who just finished at Stanford, and Stephan Baker, both young sailors who will be trying to make the Olympic team.
Here is a little more that I learned about Olympic sailing, the upcoming Olympic games, and how teams train:
Sailors from around the world have been visiting the L.A. harbor area because it has been a chance to learn about the local conditions of wind and tide and sailing directions. Some of the training involves being outside the breakwater and running as far north as Pt Fermin. Some involves racing inside the breakwater. The Nacra17 website has details of a series of races that were just completed.
But this training involved learning about the LA28 sailing courses as they will exist in the summer months. During the winter, things are going to be different here, so not suitable for Olympic training. So the U.S. Sailing Team will relocate to Europe, where the winter sailing is more like the summer sailing we have here. I asked about the difficulty and expense of transporting equipment (that means boats) to such far away oceans. The answer is that it is easier just to have another set of boats over there.
One other interesting fact. Some Olympic sailing includes mixed sex crews, with one male and one female.
Who are the competitors to worry about? Australia came up in the discussion along with New Zealand. We can also take note of the fact that in competition just a few days ago, the bulk of the victories were earned by Europeans. Clearly our team has its work cut out for it.
The take-home lesson is that the Olympic games are actually pretty close now, and we will see increasing numbers of team organizers and officials visiting us. The fact that we have already hosted sailing races meant to acquaint foreign crews with the local conditions says it all. And finally, it was encouraging to meet a group who were enthusiastic about their craft and happy to chat with the rest of us.
Addenda
First, a bad joke. I couldn’t help noticing that our mayoral candidates are named after food groups. In one case the spelling is a little different, but it’s close enough. One imagines the sort of question that you hear on one of those tv shows like The Dating Game: “If you were a noodle, what kind of noodle would you be?” You can write your own fish joke.
A New Term, Maybe:
I noticed something about myself when the latest threat by Donald Trump (in this case against Canada) came out. I immediately discounted it. It was a bit of the TACO phenomenon (Trump always chickens out) but it was even a bit more than that. It was that most Trump threats get modified or taken back or delayed, and the time it takes for this to happen has been compressed. Often it’s only 3 days. But there is even more to the phenomenon.
I call it Trump Fatigue.
There’s only so much of this nonsense you can swallow in the course of a month or a year, and we seem to have reached that point.
I had another thought – another bad joke, actually – but it involves the idea of holding a summit meeting just north of the Canadian border in some small town. But the Canadians should rename that place Epstein Files and invite the U.S. to join in substantive discussions.
So why would Trump decide to pick another fight with Canada over tariffs just hours after he talked about reducing tariffs on imported beef? Beats me. And more to the point, I can’t seem to generate enough feeling about such things as to really care. It’s Trump Fatigue. What this means in practice is that I expect somebody or some country to step in and put a stop to the latest nonsense.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
