World Optimist Championships Preview

by Robert Wilkes, Int Optimist Dinghy Assoc. on 27 Jul 2005 Robert Wilkes, Secretary of the International Optimist Dinghy Association previews the upcoming OP World Championships in Silvaplana, Switzerland

Tuesday 26 July

With racing in the 2005 Optimist Worlds starting on Thursday, the next two days are occupied by measurement and practice at Silvaplana, Switzerland.

Measurement involving 242 boats is a major exercise. Four ISAF International Measurers with the help of local volunteers are scrutineering all hulls and equipment and aiming to conduct full measurement on a randomly selected hull from each manufacturer represented. For each team the process takes less than an hour but for the measurers it is four days of intense work.

The equipment presented explains some of the popularity of the Optimist Class.
Ninety four of the sailors, mostly non-European, will use charter boats supplied by the Danish builder Winner at a cost of US$480. The remainder of the fleet have brought their own Optimists, built by maybe twenty of the thirty plus approved builders. Such is the strict one-design of the Class that every sailor, chartering or not, can be confident that his boat is just like every other boat in the fleet.

At the recent European championship twelve builders had boats in the top twenty boys and girls (details at http://www.optiworld.org/topgear.html).

No one doubts that any of the other builders could have been on the list if the helms of their boats had had better luck. Over half those using their own boats had bought them in their own or a neighbouring country so. For example, if Scandinavian sailors are performing well Scandinavian boats will feature on the leaderboard.

Meanwhile on the beautiful Silvaplana the 52 teams are trying to come to terms with lake conditions including the famous Majola wind. Motor boats are prohibited so coaches have borrowed an assortment of sailboats and even boards. But once racing starts even these will be banned and coaches are being supplied with bicycles to follow the fortunes of their teams. There is talk of modifying the RRS to govern the right of way when two bikes are on a collision course!

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Monday 25 July

The 43rd Optimist World Championship starts registration today Monday on the beautiful Silvaplana lake in the Swiss Engadine. Following three days of practice and measurement the first races are on Thursday 28th.

Fifty two countries are expected to enter a total of 242 sailors, each country being allowed five sailors. This establishes a new record for a ' normal' championship (in 2000 the Class ran a special 'Millennium Worlds' with fifty nine countries but many of these were given free entry). It is a long way from the last time Switzerland hosted the championship in 1974 when just twenty countries were represented.

Understandably by comparison with last year's event in Ecuador, more European countries are represented including Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia and Serbia/Montenegro. But the move to Europe has not deterred too many of last year's entries from the Americas with, for example, five Caribbean teams.
The reigning champion is Wei Ni of China who is present to defend his title, as is the 2002 & 2003 champion Filip Matika (Croatia) competing in the event for the fourth time. Among the other top ten sailors from last year are Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox from New Zealand, Kacper Zieminski (Poland), Matthew Scott (Trinidad) who recently took the bronze medal at the North Americans, and Baepi Pinna (Brasil).

Forty of the sailors are girls. In the Optimist Class places at the European Championship are reserved for them but here at the Worlds they have qualified in open national competition. A majority of the teams (28) include at least one girl. On two occasions the championship has been won by a girl.

Tina Lutz (Germany) was top girl in Ecuador and is one of relatively few lake sailors present, being from the Chiemsee. Perhaps surprisingly to those who do not know the changing world of women's sailing the main challenge to her may come from outside Europe with Asian champion Griselda Khng (Singapore) and several South Americans.

The future for these young sailors is bright. 40% of the Olympic helms in 2004 were graduates of this Optimist Worlds which means that 8-10 of those present here are statistically likely to become Olympians, some even Olympic medallists following the footsteps of Scheidt, Ainslie, Sundby and many others. On past form at least 70% of them will continue to sail dinghies competitively and hopefully all will continue to enjoy our great sport.

A history of the event can be found at www.optiworld.org/ioda-worldhistory.html and recent results at www.optiworld.org/ioda-results.html