Daily review - 10 November - 2017 Annual Conference

World Sailing’s Council met on Friday 10 November for the first of a two-day session at the 2017 Annual Conference in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

The session was streamed live on YouTube and can be watched back here – https://youtu.be/XbVLiaqVppI. A summary of the day is available below:
 
President’s Report
 
President Kim Andersen opened the meeting of World Sailing’s Council by delivering his Presidential report.
 
Andersen addressed the Vice President’s in attendance, 28 appointed members from World Sailing groups as well as Para World Sailing, Oceanic and Offshore, Classes and Women’s representatives and observers.
 
Click here for more – http://www.sailing.org/news/85491.php#.WgYTwYZrzxs
 
Vice President’s Report
 
World Sailing’s Board of Directors is made up of the President, seven Vice-President’s and a representative from the Athletes’ Commission.
 
Nadine Stegenwalner opened the Vice-Presidential reports, giving an overview of the work done in training and development. In 2017, more than 16 Technical Courses for Coaches have been delivered and close to 500 coaches have gone through the courses.
 
Athletes’ Commission Chair Yann Rocherieux represents the interests of all the sailors. Roceherieux and the Commission have been focused on the event strategy and the steps forward as well as ensuring more work is done to make sailors heroes in the media.
 
Ana Sanchez outlined the development of Race Officials and how the first Expression Judges will be named soon. She also outlined the continued work within the Racing Rules Committee. In total, there are 22 working parties and 80 people working on the different aspects of the rules. Expertise is coming from other committees and incorporating others who are currently not involved in committees but can be in the future.
 
W. Scott Perry reported on the ongoing work in reinstating Para World Sailing back into the Paralympic Games Sports Programme.  One of the key criteria for reinstatement back into the Paralympic Games is the number of participating nations and at the 2017 Worlds in Kiel, Germany, 78 sailors from 37 nations from five continents were represented.
 
Work continues to try and include Para World Sailing in other events, such as regional games and success came in 2017 with sailing in the European Para Youth Games.
 
Format, quotas and qualification for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games was the leading topic from Jan Dawson’s report. These will be voted on by Council on Saturday.
 
Gary Jobson gave an overview of the work done in the Oceanic and Offshore world. He referenced the continued work of the Universal Measurement System (UMS) and incident report.
 
Torben Grael gave insight into youth sailing, particularly the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games and the Youth Sailing World Championships and Quanhai Li concluded with a report into the development of sailing in Asia.
 
World Sailing introduce a governance commission
 
World Sailing’s Council approved the introduction of a Governance Commission.
 
The Commission will undertake an in-depth and wide-ranging review of the governance structure of World Sailing. From there, they will make recommendations to the Board of Directors for modernising World Sailing’s governance.
 
The Governance Commission will identify models of best practice from the IOC Basic Principles of Good Governance, the IOC Declaration on Good Governance, the work of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations Governance Task Force (ASOIF) and governance reviews of other federations.
 
From there they will consider and recommend changes such as composition, powers, functions and procedures before reporting to the Board and Council in May 2018 with proposed changes.
 
These will be presented in their final form to the Board in September 2018 and then put forward for consideration and review at the 2018 Annual Conference.
 
The creation of the Governance Commission is in line with World Sailing’s two-year governance modernisation roadmap outlined in May 2016. World Sailing’s two-year road map focuses on meeting ASOIF’s standards.
 
Council Symposium
 
For the first time at a Council meeting, a symposium was held with guest speakers presenting on developments within the sport. 
 
Tom Herbert Evans was the Community Manager at the 35^th America’s Cup in Bermuda and provided delegates with insight into the Endeavour Program. The Program took sailing into schools through educational initiatives and allowed hundreds of new sailors to gain awareness and get involved in the sport.
 
Stan Honey delivered the innovative graphics and technology at the America’s Cup and he gave delegates an insight into the technology, how it works and how it’s being adapted to become more cost effective.
 
Richard Slater, Chief Umpire at the 35^th America’s Cup, carried on from Honey, explaining how the technology was used by the officials.
 
The technology was able to track the boats to within 2cm and enabled the umpires to increase the accuracy and consistency of decision making. It also helped to improve the sailor experience in terms of reviewing and coaching and improved race management.
 
Matthew Mason and his daughter Emma Mason concluded the presentations by providing a fascinating insight into a new development for the Optimist dinghy. Matthew designed a new bow that can attached onto the Optimist as well as an addition to the existing rig. The development would turn the boat into a two-person boat for young children as well as enabling heavier children to continue sailing in the boat.
 
Click the links below to watch back the keynote speeches:

• Tom Herbert Evans – https://youtu.be/XbVLiaqVppI?t=3h25m5s
• Stan Honey and Richard Slater – https://youtu.be/XbVLiaqVppI?t=4h37m5s
• Matthew and Emma Mason – https://youtu.be/XbVLiaqVppI?t=5h12m4s

 
Saturday 11 November
 
The meeting of World Sailing’s Council will continue on Saturday 11 November. Submissions, events and committee reports are all on the agenda and the session will be available to watch live on the World Sailing Network – www.youtube.com/worldsailingtv.