26 August

Dear Andrew,

Your lead article logs a low note in SAS administration. The entry was bungled.

Without seeming to split hairs, your article does not put the blame squarely where it belongs. The secretariat cannot be expected to carry the blame here. The first entry form was received in March and duly sent on to the appropriate standing committee. The high performnance committee were responsible for ensuring its completetion and submission. This did not happen. The office did not follow up.

In June a reminder was received. The reminder was not sent out due to the SAS office move.

All agree unequivocally that we need an admnistrative body. We cannot function without one. The incident throws up a classic weakness in the way in which sailing folk try to administer their sport in this day and age. No one wants to create an expense that can be avoided, but we all know there is no such thing as a free lunch. Someone somewhere at any time of the day, is giving their time freely; and sailing relies on this constant act of collective goodwill to run a fairly complex organisation.

SAS is peopled by competent and knowledgeable men and women with considerable combined sailing and administrative skills. The big BUT is that they are, to a person, doing the work on a voluntary basis. If they mess up through the need to aply their minds to a more pressing (for them) matters, like earning enough to pay the rent, then we cannot expect that they will not move their priorites away from elsewhere. We are probably the only country that still expects our national sport administration to be run solely by voluntary input.

In essence we have tremendous directive capacity with no accountable executive power at all.

Predictably, there have been changes in the high performance portfolio as a result of the recent sanfu, and Danny Blanckenberg has stepped into the breech. But that won't, regrettably, get the horse back into the stable.

This, and other incidents of a similar nature, seem to indicate that SAS has to become more professional.

Doug Harrowsmith
SAS Marketing & Communications Standing Committee