Wednesday, August 06, 2008

What Were They Thinking?

What were they thinking?

Yesterday US Sailing issued a press release about the upcoming U.S. Singlehanded Championships for the George O’Day Trophy. As part of the usual PR puff they chose to mention four previous winners of the O'Day including a certain Mr. Brodie Cobb who won the trophy in 1984 and 85.

The problem? Mr. Cobb is currently suspended (by US Sailing) from "participating as either skipper or crew member in any sailing competition in the United States" because of what was euphemistically described by the US Sailing Review Board as an incident involving physical contact between two sailors.

Or if you want the gory details, according to this thread on the Laser Forum, here are some of the "facts found" by the jury who heard this case...

14. Shortly after finishing 180081 (Cobb) tacked to starboard and rammed 164380.

15. The skipper of 180081 pulled the boats together side by side and said to 164380 “didn’t I tell you I was going to beat your ass?”

16. 180081’s skipper got halfway out of his boat and boarded 164380 and started to grab and punch the skipper of 164380, not once but at least twice.

17. The skipper of 164380 asked “What the fuck are you (180081) are doing?”

18. The skipper of 180081 answered as he again attempted to punch the skipper of 164380 with an overhead punch “Don’t you know who I am, you’ve fucked up my regatta.”

19. The skipper of 164380 only put his arms up to defend himself and made no aggressive moves in response to the attack.

Couldn't US Sailing have found a better example of a former O'Day winner to enhance the reputation of the event in their press release?

What were they thinking?

Update: There's also more detail and discussion about the original incident at this thread on the Scuttlebutt Forum.

8 comments:

Litoralis said...

That struck me as unusual too...but not as unusual as the boat they chose for the Championships...the Sunfish!!!

Tillerman said...

Hey, don't knock the Sunfish, There are at least ten reasons why Sunfish are better than Lasers.

Anonymous said...

Oh, gee, I think they knew exactly what they were doing. It was kinda cool the way the Barrett trophy for sportsmanship was juxtaposed with the list of former O'Day winners.

Tillerman said...

Maybe. Are US Sailing that smart? Perhaps they should have listed the winners of the Sportsmanship Trophy in the press release too?

They didn't so I will...

2007 Peter Seidenberg
2006 Ben Richardson
2005 Vann Wilson
2004 Ryan Minth
2003 Anna Tunnicliffe
2002 Lindsay Hewitt

All names worthy of infinitely more respect than that of Mr. BC.

Editor said...

Once again we see that the future of sailing is doomed in the hands of US Sailing!

Blogger said...

When we changed Forum servers, the links changed too. I tried to edit the link in the Laser Forum, but was unable. Here is the correct link to the Cobb thread: http://forum.sailingscuttlebutt.com/cgi-bin/gforum.cgi?post=2901

Carol Anne said...

Hmmm .... I just had a bizarre idea. Pat and I can probably come up with a Sunfish for the best sailor in SAIL (consisting of Hungary, Finland, Uzbekistan, the western third of the Czech Republic, and a tiny bit of the western end of Canada) to sail in for the championships.

Anonymous said...

Well, that's very nice of you Carol Anne but I don't think it will be necessary. SAIL is part of Area F which is being represented by Paul Foerster at this year's O'Day championship. In any case, all the boats at the O'Day in Sayville, NY are new Sunfish being provided by the manufacturer.

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