ISAF Mid Year Meeting considers America's Cup, Olympics and Tracking

by Richard Gladwell on 9 May 2010
The Council of the International Sailing Federation has been meeting for the past two days in Budapest, Hungary.

The Council Meeting was preceded by the Events Committee meeting.

The mid-year meeting precedes the Annual Meeting in November and traditionally deals with matters deferred from the previous Annual Meeting on which further information and consideration are required.

The key topics under consideration at this Mid-Year Meeting include future Olympic strategy, America's Cup and Tracking systems.

Olympic Commission Chairman, Phil Jones (AUS) has made a presentation to the Council on the changes the new Commission believe should be made to the Sailing Olympics. This report is believed to be quite wide ranging and is an attempt to thwart the frantic lobbying process by various interest groups and classes to maintain their place at the Olympic table.

That lobbying led to the non-selection of the Multihull event, last November, for the 2012 Olympics - a move which outraged many in the sport, and saw the Sailing Olympics step back from one of the most exciting aspects of the sport which reached its zenith in the 2010 America's Cup, plus round the world speed records.

On the agenda for the Events Committee were various submissions from multihull classes, plus the French and USA sailing authorities calling for Multihull Sailing to be set as one of the five disciplines to be contested at an Olympic regatta.

It is not known if the Events Committee considered these submissions separately or if they were covered off in the Olympic Commission report.

Sail-World understands that the full Olympic Commission Report will be published mid-way through this week. It is believed to be the real overview of all aspects of the Olympics, Qualifying, and Classes, and will apply for the 2016 Olympics and beyond. The Olympic Commission report is expected to recommend a more measured process to be followed for Olympic Event selection, rather than the political maneuvering which occurs each quadrennial Annual Conference and its preceding meetings over a 12 months period.

Phil Jones is a member of ISAF's Events Committee and CEO of Yachting Australia.

ISAF Treasurer, David Kellett (AUS) has updated the ISAF Council on matters America's Cup. There were no published papers on the topics being covered, however they are expected to be a review of the 33rd America's Cup and ISAF's role in that, plus what is known of then 34th America's Cup. The matter of the incident involving race officials from Societe Nautique de Geneve and Principal Race Officer for the 33rd America's Cup, Harold Bennett may have been discussed.

ISAF Council member and Race Officials Committee member, Patrick Bergmans (BEL) presented the report from the Technology Working Party established to look at tracking systems used in various forms of sailing, off the back of a questionnaire which had been circulated to race officials. The Report summarised the responses to the questionnaire and then proposed the setting of various standards by ISAF which would bring some commonality to tracking systems - designed to lower their cost and increase their use both at the regatta venue and by media and fans.