ISAF Annual Conference - 7 November Summary

ISAF Council commenced their meeting at the 2014 ISAF Annual Conference in Palma de Mallorca, Spain on 7 November 2014.

ISAF President Carlo Croce, His Majesty King Constantine and the ISAF Vice-Presidents were joined by regional representatives as well as Offshore, Women’s Forum, ISAF Classes and Athletes Commission reps around the table.

ISAF President Carlo Croce commenced the meeting by taking a moment to remember friends and sailors who have passed on over the last 12 months. He continued on to the ISAF President’s Report which can be viewed here http://www.sailing.org/news/39221.php.

A summary of the day can be read below:

ISAF Vice-President Reports

Nazli Imre gave an update on the work that has been done over the last 12 months to help support the Emerging Nations and how this is moving forward. Imre explained that the current Athlete Participation Programme will be merged into an Emerging Nations Programme (ENP). The ENP will help to support young sailors before and during the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship. It will then continue to support these young sailors through to participation at the ISAF Sailing World Championships.

Imre also commented on the ISAF Training Scholarship that concluded just three weeks ago and the 2015 ISAF Development Symposium that will take place in New Orleans, USA.

George Andreadis emphasised the importance of the Equipment Rules of Sailing and making the boats equal and fair for all sailors.

Adrienne Greenwood told ISAF Council about the good work that the Alpari World Match Racing Tour have been doing in promoting sailing and match racing in South East Asia. They have been reaching out to the youth and have put together a blueprint for developing youth match racing. Greenwood also praised the inaugural Youth Match Racing World Championship that took place in Helsinki, Finland in July this year.

Chris Atkins gave an update on the Rio 2016 Olympic Sailing Competition, emphasising that sailing will be the standout sport at the Olympic Games. Under the watch of Christ the Redeemer and in the shadow of Sugarloaf Mountain it will certainly be a breath taking Olympic Games. Atkins also spoke about how the Santander 2014 ISAF Sailing World Championships brought sailing to the local community. The spectator stand saw several hundred thousand people pass through to watch the action on the water.

ISAF Vice President W. Scott Perry is Technical Delegate for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and also worked closely on the Santander 2014 ISAF Worlds. Like his fellow Executive Committee member Chris Atkins he emphasised how fantastic the Santander 2014 ISAF Worlds were.

Gary Jobson spoke about the broadcasting at the Santander 2014 ISAF Worlds highlighting that 23 broadcasters took live coverage and many more received news. Jobson went on to explain how the World Youth Sailing Trust is supporting young sailors. He concluded by talking about Sailor Classification and the work that will be done to develop the code.

ISAF President Quanhai Li spoke about the success of the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea, thanking the Korean Sailing Association for their work on the event. Quanhai Li explained that at the next edition of the regatta, the program will reflect the Olympic Sailing Competition as well as incorporating popular youth classes. Quanhai Li was present at the 2014 ISAF Sailing World Cup Qingdao and thanked all of the participating teams and their countries as well as complimenting the technical team that delivered a high standard regatta.

Rio 2016 Update

Rio 2016 Sailing Manager Walter Boddener updated ISAF Council on the progress of the Rio 2016 Olympic Sailing Competition which will be held out of Marina da Gloria in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Marina da Gloria is an existing venue which has two launching ramps inside the marina and off of Flamengo Beach. The beach will be used to launch the RS:X and Nacra 17 fleets and will bring the sport closer to the public.

The water quality is a hot topic with several actions taking place at the Aquece Rio – International Sailing Regatta 2014, the first Olympic test event. The Rio 2016 team presented to the teams who were competing in Rio and they were able to test before and during the event.

Ten eco-boats and eight eco-barriers were in action and there was biological treatment throughout the duration of the event.

ISAF will be continuing talks with organisers at Rio 2016, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Brazilian authorities regarding pollution in Guanabara Bay.

Looking ahead there are plans in place for the next steps. There are plans to construct a sewage belt, create seven more eco-barriers, introduce five larger eco-boats, build three new sewage treatment stations, add river treatment units, landfills and a sanitation system. There are also plans to collect and test the water inside Guanabara Bay every 15 days.

Welcome Macua and Monserrat

Macau and Montserrat were unanimously approved by ISAF Council as associate members.

Committee Activity Reports

Reports were received from the Committee Chairmen on their Committee’s activities:

Audit Committee – Jan Dawson
Constitution Committee – Philip Tolhurst
Development and Youth Committee – Olivier Bovyn
Equipment Committee – Kim Andersen
Events Committee – Pablo Masseroni
ISAF Classes Committee – Jeff Martin
Match Racing Committee – Liz Baylis
Oceanic and Offshore Committee – Jacques Lehn
Race Officials Committee – Jan Stage
Racing Rules Committee – Bernard Bonneau
Regional Games Committee – David Covo
Windsurfing and Kiteboarding Committee – Bruno Marques

International Associations for Disabled Sailing (IFDS) – John Twomey
World Sailing Speed Record Council – Stan Honey

Jan Stage explained how the Race Officials Committee will be looking to find younger Race Officials and increase the continued development of Race Officials. He also emphasised that there is a submission on the table that could potentially see three more disciplines of official added, these are:
Technical Delegates
Classifiers
Expression Judges

Bruno Marques explained how the Techno 293 class is currently flourishing with record numbers at their worldwide events. John Twomey spoke about how at the IFDS AGM they unanimously agreed with the IFDS merger with ISAF whilst Stan Honey highlighted Armel Le Cleac’h’s triumphs on Banque Populaire 7 with several world records being broken over the last 12 months.

ISAF Classes Committee Chairman Jeff Martin spoke about the diversity of sailing. Within ISAF there are 111 ISAF Classes that cater for sailors of all ages with universal participation.

Member National Authority Questionnaire

ISAF Vice President Chris Atkins went through the 2014 MNA Audit that was recently conducted. The Audit looked at what the MNAs are doing within their nation.

Some of the interesting statistics showed what sailing participation within there is like nation. Nations like Grenada have one club, eight members and 60 juniors whilst France has over 1,000 clubs and more than 1,500,000 participating in the sport.

On the social media side of the sport more than half of ISAF MNAs use Facebook whilst only a small percentage use YouTube. Looking at sponsorship, 45% of MNAs have a general sponsor and 19% have an Olympic sponsor.

ISAF Sailing World Cup

Head of the ISAF Sailing World Cup, John Craig, gave ISAF Council an update on the progress of the ISAF Sailing World Cup.

The first ISAF Sailing World Cup Final is just 19 days away and as Craig highlighted in his presentation there are some fine sailors heading to Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The ten Olympic events and Open Kiteboarding will see elite fleets with a maximum of 20 sailors in each. During the event there will be some excellent sailing conditions with the breeze expected to fill in around 13:00 local times. View the entry list here. http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/SWCFinalEntries28Oct2014-%5B17849%5D.pdf

There will be cultural connections for sailors and officials with activities planned around Abu Dhabi. Abu Dhabi Sailing Yacht Club will be a huge draw for spectators with several in-venue activities for them as well.

Craig gave an update on the 2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup series. The series will see reduced quotas, a qualification process based around the ISAF World Sailing Rankings and ISAF Sailing World Cup Qualification Regattas will be used to determine the entrants for each round, ensuring the world’s best sailors will be within the World Cup fleets.

Event winners from each SWC Round will qualify to the 2015 SWC Final whilst the best placed ‘home continent’ sailor in each round will also qualify. The top three finishers at the 2015 Class World Championships (if already held) will qualify to the 2015 SWC Final. The remaining SWC Final places will be awarded via the ISAF World Sailing Rankings.

2015 ISAF Sailing World Cup regattas:
Melbourne – 7-14 December 2014
Miami – 25-31 January 2015
Hyères – 20-26 April 2015
Weymouth – 8-14 June 2015
TBC – September / October 2015
2015 Final Abu Dhabi – 27 October to 1 November 2015

Events Updates

Reports were delivered on the following events:
•2020 Olympic Sailing Competition
•2014 and 2018 ISAF Sailing World Championships
•2014 and 2018 Youth Olympic Games
•2014 and 2015 ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship
•2014 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship
•2014 ISAF Youth Match Racing World Championship
•2015 ISAF Team Racing World Championship

America’s Cup Update

Gary Jobson gave an update on the 2017 America’s Cup. There are five challengers at the moment with one or two more possibles. The defence will be led by ORACLE TEAM USA and ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year Jimmy Spithill.

A shorter schedule than the one in 2017 is expected with the sailors racing on a 62 foot winged catamaran. The America’s World Cup Series will help preview the event with events heading to Bermuda and Portsmouth, Great Britain.

The venue for the 35th America’s Cup is to be announced.

ISAF Council will resume their meeting at 09:30 local time on Saturday 8 November where the 2014 ISAF Annual Conference will conclude.

To stay up-to-date with the ISAF Annual Conference, a live blog will be available from Saturday 1 November through to Saturday 8 November here.