This legal challenge could have HUGE implications for the shoe research and development process if Steiner were to win.

I don’t normally root for the big guy, or the multi-million $$$ corporation….buuuuut…in this case it may just be for the best if they win.

Anyways, make your own mind up below:

Read Article Here!

I’m George, I write about sport, sailing, going outside, running and a bunch of other very cool and interesting stuff.

If you like cool and interesting stuff, then subscribe to have your mind blown every time I send out my very occasional non-spammy digest, that contains all my recent work in one email. It’s rad and it really supports me. Thanks!

Subscribe now

Normally, I do it in an esoteric, ineffective way, where I wave my hands in the air (pretending they are boats), and ask my audience to start doing maths of random strings of numbers (234, 135, 256…). But today I have posted a video which means I never need to this again!

This video explains how 3 versus 3 team racing, the greatest format of sailboat racing ever conceived of, functions. It also explains how you actually win a race, and the slightly odd manner in which we start sailing races.

If you’ve never sailed (or at least never team raced), then this video is for you. It’s clear, informative, and explains the very simple sport which appears to have dominated much of my life for the last decade.

Enjoy!

Hi, I’m George. Maybe you know me already. Maybe you think you know me, but it was actually just another guy that looked the same as me.

Anyways, I write stuff sometimes and also I make videos. Mainly about sailing, or running, or sport in general.

So if you’re into that kind of stuff, subscribe below to receive my ad-hoc digest of recent work. No spam - just the occasional catalogue of incredible articles and videos.

Subscribe now

The video was called ‘Team Racing Basics ep1 - Top Reach Mark Trap’, and 23 months later it now has amassed a grand total of 1,316 views. It’s not exactly viral success. Yet despite this, I am incredibly proud of this video, and of the other 51 videos I have published since then.

The video goes over (in excruciating detail) how to perform a simple sailing move and since uploading this video, I have had a lot of people ask me a simple question with a complicated answer: “Why make these videos?”

So why do I make these videos that I’m so proud of? It’s certainly not the cinematography, lack-luster editing, or poor-quality thumbnail images. Between camera equipment, microphones, subscriptions to editing software, and more, I must have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of pounds on making these videos, which tend to at best garner a couple thousand views. So it’s certainly not fame or fortune.

And that’s not even accounting for the hundreds of hours of editing, scripting and filming, or the late nights polishing off an almost-but-not-quite-finished video. The process is laborious, difficult, often boring, and usually disappointing.

And yet still, I turn up to produce the next one.

What makes a sport?

Sport at its most basic level is made up purely of players - friends in the park, family in the garden, or a partner on the court. But beneath the idyllic facade lies a far, far greater behemoth of moving parts which makes each game or match or race possible.

Even outside of organised sport, our games rely on all sorts of external variables to become possible. Manufacturers produce sports equipment, councils maintain local facilities, even our rulesets are inherited, usually from the Victorians, allowing us to compete with others without explaining how to play each time. Within the organised sports that so many of us enjoy this lists grows even further: Umpires, timekeepers, officials, linesmen…the list goes on.

Without contribution, the sport ceases to exist. And this isn’t a theoretical statement, as plenty of sports have gone extinct in the past. Some of the most popular sports of history, from Real Tennis to Pedestrianism, have fallen almost to zero participation. If we want to continue to enjoy the fruits of participation in sport, I think it is our duty to provide at least a modest contribution to our sporting system, whether through our time, money, experience or skills.

I have competed at sailing for around 12 years. Within that time I must have completed hundreds of races, each made possible by a committed group of volunteers. I have improved steadily, receiving advice, tips, and time from wonderful coaches and athletes. Without the contributions of these individuals my sport would fall apart.

And so, to answer the original question as to why I make videos, the answer is that I hope to give a little back to a system which has given me so much.

What should I do?

“If not you, who? If not now, when?” - Hillel the Elder

In an age where the sport we see and do is increasingly commercialised, it feels very easy to pay your entry fees or club subsidies, and then enjoy your sport without thinking about the effort which has gone into making it happen. Indeed, if you are new to a sport I would encourage you to play as much as possible without worrying about helping out.

But as your relationship with your sport deepens, I think we have a responsibility to look at our skills and assess how we can be ambassadors for our sport and help it to grow. This can take many forms, from volunteering at Parkrun, to taking an umpire or refereeing course. I think many athletes are aware of this duty, and do their best to act it out (or at very least to promise to themselves that they will act it out after retiring from regular competition).

In my case, I believe that one of my best uses of skill is to improve the knowledge base available online for Team Racing (for any non-sailors, this is an incredibly niche format of sport), since so little was available.

The reaction I have received from other sailors has been overwhelmingly positive. I never set out with the intention of producing lots of media, just to convey a few points that I had learnt whilst captaining the sailing team at Southampton University. But in doing so I have been reminded of a salient but important point:

In sports or leagues where there is little to no media coverage, the marginal gains to your sport from increasing both the entertainment & educational media coverage are huge.

Little Actions, Big Wins

So what does this marginal gains thing mean? Basically, if your marginal gains are big, it means that small actions by you can have a big impact on your sport. I’ve struggled to even find results for sailing events before. By contributing just a modest amount to sailing media, I have been able to have a genuine impact on the sport, and helped lots of people improve their sailing, or become more interested in team racing.

This isn’t true of every sport. I don’t think one extra YouTube Premier League pundit is going to change football. But a report or video on a local football league? That could still have a huge effect (as YouTuber ‘JerseyBird’, who bought a 6th div Kenyan team has shown).

It’s also easy to do. You can write, or film, or record from home. You can use photos that you might have taken anyway. But engagement with your sport, particularly through educational or deeper reviews, will have a genuine impact on your community.

So this is a call to action. If you’ve ever considered making content about your sport, today is the day you ought to try it. Because it is our responsibility to steward and grow our sports, if we want to continue to compete in a fun and competitive environment.

And if you have no interest in writing or YouTube or other silly internet stuff, then please do consider other ways to volunteer or to provide coaching/services to athletes in your sport.

But seriously, try making a YouTube video. It’s fun, I promise.

Hi, I’m George. I am a sailor, runner and general sports & outdoor enthusiast. I have been making YouTube videos for two years, but I want to try writing so now I have a Substack. Enter your email below to have a periodic digest of interesting pieces about sport sent directly to your inbox. No spam - just the occasional email with a variety of articles like this one attached.

Subscribe now

Watch some of my YouTube videos here: Incredible Sailing Content

My eyes scanned over the glowing results summary for a fifth time, searching for at least one redeeming factor in my performance from the weekend. My team hadn’t just finished in last place overall; we had lost every race of the weekend, often crossing the finish line minutes after our opponents.

I didn’t understand what I had done wrong. Even the worst-ranked teams were effortlessly faster than us, with better boat handling. They always seemed to be in exactly the right place, and the racecourse would thrum with a constant chatter as they called positions and esoteric tactical calls between their boats. Whenever a protest was made it would always go against us and we accumulated penalty after penalty.

To say I was out of my depth is an understatement. Our opponents were leagues ahead of us. My plucky school team had only managed to secure a place at the prestigious event in exchange for the use of our boats, and I had only been selected for the team when a friend had called in sick the day before. I rubbed my cold, red hands together and blinked hard, turning my face away from passing university sailors as I fought to stop any tears escaping. How could I ever compete against these people?

Team racing is a niche corner of a niche sport. Of the millions of people around the world who go sailing each year, only a fraction will choose to race, and of those only a tiny minority will try their hand at team racing. Even of those who attempt to team race, very few will achieve a deep understanding of the sport, and maybe only a handful will ever claim any mastery of the discipline. For a beginner, the task of learning the skills required to win a team race can be daunting, and in such a small, complicated sport it can be impossible to know where to begin.

I was not very good at team racing 10 years ago. In fact, I was terrible at it. But since then I have risen to compete at the top national and international level in the sport, as well as becoming an umpire and a coach. I try to make resources to help others succeed. Follow for more, or check out my educational videos on YouTube here.

Subscribe now