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My very limited understanding - which may well be incorrect - is as follows:

- Within ISAF is a council, comprised of a smaller group who represent the wider membership. They are charged with making decisions (like whether to include kitesurfing). They require a super majority (like 2/3) to make those decisions.

- The decisions made by the council are subject to ratification by the wider membership at the AGM each year (which is what we have just had, and occurs after the council business has concluded). Ratification or rejection requires a simple (50%) majority.

All that happened was that the council voted kitesurfing in with a super majority - the broader membership effectively rejected it through a simple majority vote.

I would guess that the unusual part is that you would always expect the AGM to approve the council decisions, given they are the subset of experts. Which is why a simple majority is employed at this point to prevent maverick groups from essentially rolling over the councils determinations at the AGM stage.

Cloak and dagger theories are always fun. But in terms of process, it looks relatively straightforward.

Jono 111 wrote:My very limited understanding - which may well be incorrect - is as follows:

- Within ISAF is a council, comprised of a smaller group who represent the wider membership. They are charged with making decisions (like whether to include kitesurfing). They require a super majority (like 2/3) to make those decisions.

- The decisions made by the council are subject to ratification by the wider membership at the AGM each year (which is what we have just had, and occurs after the council business has concluded). Ratification or rejection requires a simple (50%) majority.

All that happened was that the council voted kitesurfing in with a super majority - the broader membership effectively rejected it through a simple majority vote.

I would guess that the unusual part is that you would always expect the AGM to approve the council decisions, given they are the subset of experts. Which is why a simple majority is employed at this point to prevent maverick groups from essentially rolling over the councils determinations at the AGM stage.

Cloak and dagger theories are always fun. But in terms of process, it looks relatively straightforward.

...but what was talked about earlier was a 3/4 majority, and not a 2/3s. Either way, changing their mind every 6 months is NOT a clean or even remotely straightforward process. If it was a decision that wasn't final then that should have been said, and then ratified or not ratified later. As it stands now, they mix it up, and it seems random.


here is a clip from sail world, which shows how stupid this was:
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The same recommendation was again put forward to the ISAF Council Meeting at its Annual Conference, in Dun Laoghire, Ireland, but that would have required a 75% majority to Re-open the Decision of the Council from the May Meeting in respect of the events for the 2016 Olympics.

The move to re-open failed by just two votes to reach the required threshold, but got support from 26 of the 38 voting delegates, at the Council Meeting on Thursday.

From there it was likely that if the Council vote was repeated at the Annual General Meeting (held only once every four years), it was obvious that the Windsurfers had done their homework and would carry the day - provided politics did not come into play and delegates at the AGM (where each country physically present is allowed a single vote, instead of just the the regions in the Council Meeting) had stayed true to the voting direction from the Council meeting - which was that although 75% were not in favour of re-visiting, there clear majority were for a re-instatement of Windsurfing.
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Yep - I agree that the odd aspect was not clarifying that the council decision was effectively non-binding and interim in nature.

The windsurf people understood this - and used this period to consolidate a stronger argument in favour of windsurfing, understanding they could leverage off the lower AGM threshold.

The simple fact is that they won. I don't really understand the emotional accusations from some of the people on this thread. The simple fact seems to be that they were more organised and more persuasive. They understood the process and used it to their advantage. Fair enough.

And yes, there are always a myriad of commercial interests involved, thats the world that we live in. Exactly as is the case for kitesurfing.

Jono 111 wrote:My very limited understanding - which may well be incorrect - is as follows:

- Within ISAF is a council, comprised of a smaller group who represent the wider membership. They are charged with making decisions (like whether to include kitesurfing). They require a super majority (like 2/3) to make those decisions.

- The decisions made by the council are subject to ratification by the wider membership at the AGM each year (which is what we have just had, and occurs after the council business has concluded). Ratification or rejection requires a simple (50%) majority.

All that happened was that the council voted kitesurfing in with a super majority - the broader membership effectively rejected it through a simple majority vote.

I would guess that the unusual part is that you would always expect the AGM to approve the council decisions, given they are the subset of experts. Which is why a simple majority is employed at this point to prevent maverick groups from essentially rolling over the councils determinations at the AGM stage.

Cloak and dagger theories are always fun. But in terms of process, it looks relatively straightforward.

In April, Kiteboarding was voted in by 19 votes to 17 after the representative for Spain (who was supposed to vote for windsurfing) voted for kiting 'by mistake' according to him.
The Events Committee had voted by 14 to 2 to recommend to the Council that windsurfing should be retained in the Olympics.