Sunday, July 14, 2013

Melges vs Optimists at Garda Worlds


Melges sailing though Optimists on port at Garda Worlds mpeg2video from alan williams on Vimeo.

The craziness starts at about 0:50.

What were they thinking?



Update 17 July: a scary closer-up picture of the incident and a sorta kinda apology.


18 comments:

Baydog said...

Only of themselves

Tillerman said...

I did see something equally stupid in England once, when a keelboat going at full speed crashed through a crowded start line of Optimists.

bonnie said...

That's just nuts.

Irish Kitesurfing said...

This is something the series, ISAF and Audi should all be pressured to address.

Audi particularly should hear all about this.

R said...

That it will buff out...

BlueVark said...

Thats just mind blowingly stupid. Its not as if there was'nt plenty of room between the camera position and the oppi fleet, or even the other side of the camera boat - its a ****** large enough lake.

Keep Reaching said...

You ask what were they "thinking"? By no stretch of the imagination can that verb be used here. Find the nearest yardarm and a piece of rope.

Anonymous said...

Report it to ISAF, right down the sail numbers and make it official to ISAF.

GBR 134 said...

T-Man were these Melges perhaps acting as Mommy boats?

Anonymous said...

Oh no, do we have two Rs?

R

Anonymous said...

No. we have three Rs.

R

Tillerman said...

I see it's been "reported" on Sailing Anarchy. The sanctions imposed there will be much worse than anything ISAF could do!

Tillerman said...

The Melges drivers were sponsored by Audi? That makes sense. I was sure I had seen that sense of entitlement and utter disregard for other road users somewhere before.

Doug / Pam said...

The Melges were on port and the Optis on starboard.

And the Melges were to windward and overtaking.

And the Melges were within a few feet of the Opti jibe mark, so a slight course alteration would have prevented this.

And one Melges got so close that it snapped off an Opti burgee.

Where was the common sense and decency? This has our vote for the Hall of Shame.

Doc Häagen-Dazs said...

You nailed it, GBR.

kiwiyates said...

Tonight I put our coaches boat between a 10ft alligator and our kids learning to sail in our summer sailing camp. Apparently, I could have got in trouble with authorities for "harassing an alligator"!

If I had been there and had the chance, I might have put my coaches boat between the oncoming Melges and the Optis .... and probably got harassed for that too!

Sometimes common sense has to prevail. Unfortuately, we don't seem to have a lot of it here in the US.

Unknown said...

If you wan to know the names the are Brontolo HH (ITA-667) skippered by Filippo Pacinotti and Bribon-Movistar (ESP-226) skippered by Marc de Antonio Altimira. I hope ISAF and MG32 class decide to punish these nosense skippers.
Rodrigo

BlueVark said...

Re; Sorta Kinda Appology:

Can be paraphrased as "We did nothing wrong - even if we did its not our fault"

No acknowledgement of any personal blame whatsoever.

Thats not what i taught my kids about a meanigful appology.

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