ISAF Annual Meeting 2012 - Sailing News from the UK and Beyond

by The Sail-World.com Team on 6 Nov 2012 While most of world news attention is riveted to today's American Presidential election, the international sailing community has a presidential election of our own on November 10th, namely that of the office of ISAF President.

Current ISAF President Goran Petersson is set to step down from his eight-year stint in November, and a field of three candidates -Australia’s David Kellet, Italy’s Carlo Croce and Puerto Rico’s Eric Tulla and are running for the top job.

Today, Kellet talks about his vision for the position, his style of leadership and 'nails his colours to the mast', directly addressing perceived criticisms of his candidacy.

'In earlier correspondence with you, I have given you a background of myself and my passion for the sport of sailing,' wrote Kellet in an open letter to all national sailing authorities. 'I am a practical, hands-on leader who is very approachable [and] with no hidden agenda. As you can probably gather from my emails and letters, I prepare everything myself and openly express how I feel about matters, no professional presentation, just an honest straightforward approach.'

Kellet, it should be noted, is a veteran racing sailor with 38 Sydney-Hobarts (and counting), as well as Fastnet and Newport-Bermuda experience, to his credit and has served two four-year stints as ISAF VP, as well as a four-year term as ISAF Treasurer.

As far as we are concerned we think its a pity that only one of the three candidates seems to understand the need for transparency and we think it speaks volumes.

Check out the multi-media reports, inside this issue, to learn more about the ISAF Assembly and election, which will be held this coming weekend in Dun Laoghaire, Ireland.


It’s make or break time for the windsurfers trying to get the ISAF kiteboarding for Brazil 2016 overturned. Be sure to check out Richard Gladwell’s interesting piece on past Olympic medallists’ thoughts on kiteboarding versus windsurfing for the 2016 Games.

Given that the crucial vote for 2016 Olympic Equipment is about to happen, proponents of both sailing disciplines have been making strong arguments as to why their side should prevail, but Gladwell’s piece, which is essentially a collection of quotes from Olympic greats, offers a far deeper look into the realities of changing from 'planks' to kites.


The Rolex Sailor of the Year award, to be announced in Dublin has special interest for the UK with Helena Lucas, Saskia Sills and Ben Ainslie as nominees.

Other nominees include Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS), Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen (AUS), Tom Slingsby (AUS), Tamara Echegoyen, Angela Pumariega and Sofia Toro (ESP), Lijia Xu (CHN) and Loick Peyron (FRA).


And in America’s Cup news, Artemis Racing, the Challenger of Record for the 34th AC, has officially launched their first AC72 class wing sail-powered catamaran, despite some initial 'birthing pains'.

Also AC related, Luna Rossa launched their AC72 last week in Auckland, and have already started their sailing program, no doubt in an effort to log precious training time and to try to close the massive experience gap between themselves and Emirates Team New Zealand.