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Where's our governing body?

Posted 9 months, 12 days ago

Where's our governing body?
I'm hearing that Nicholas Gonet has quite rightly been fuming all weekend over the way he's been treated by the D35 owners who have strong-armed him into not entering the circuit for this year with the threat of "consequences" on his business life if he did. I'm waiting for the press release which apparently is going to be devastating....  Looking at the Banque Gonet website they are a proud, family run private banking business, one of only 14 in Switzerland that enjoy this status on the basis that the family put all their assets up as collateral against the bank. Clearly, big shot Ernie is implying that his wealthy contacts who no doubt bank with the Gonet's will be strong-armed into ceasing business - remember this is the guy who sits on the board of UBS who have just written off billions in sub-prime debts and are desperate for a new Chairman with everyone in the financial world going: "not for me thanks!" Top tip to UBS - get rid of the clown on the board because he couldn't run a bath let alone a bank... And now it's rumoured that Nicholas Gonet is so upset with the way he's been bullied that he's putting his D35 on the market and is high-tailing as far away as possible from the despicable Bertarelli farce. Can't blame him... So where does this leave sailing? We have an exclusive catamaran class operating under the rules of our sport supported by an ISAF recognised club, effectively being elitist and standing away from the rest of us. Absolutely fine in my book - go for it guys, have your circuit, race your boats on your own but there have to be "consequences" which clearly you are so fond of pointing out to everyone else. The consequence has to be that anyone who sails onboard a D35 is banned from all ISAF competition. It's simple and this is the moment for ISAF to show that it's not a bunch of poodle part-timers who enjoy a long lunch and sitting on committees. This is where you earn your money. It's so easy when everything is going right and there are sunshine regattas....when the storm clouds come in and there's pure vindictive evil breezing across the racecourse of our sport, you have to act. I'm not holding my breath...remember this the entity that gave Ed Baird the World Sailor Award! Meanwhile here's some shots of the Banque Gonet team in happier times, winning the 2006 Bol D'Or - what's changed so much since then? If we let Bertarelli and his giant ego get away with this, we may as well all give up hope and play golf... Photos: courtesy of Rolex/Daniel Forster and Rolex/Carlo Borlenghi (above).    Full Story »

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