Melges 24 class looking forward to 2021 - A note from the Chair

by IM24CA 14 Nov 2020 07:35 PST

The World Council of the International Melges 24 Class Association (IM24CA), which consists of the National Class Association chairs and the IM24CA Executive Committee, held its Annual General Meeting virtually on Saturday November 7 with a review of the 2020 season's activities along with approving the budget, rule changes and regulations that govern the Class.

Chair Laura Grondin was pleased with the status of the class and progress made in this unusual year looking hopefully forward to 2021.

Dear M24 Sailors,

On a very warm November day (in my time zone....), the World Council of the IM24CA met on Zoom, a mode of meeting with which we have all become quite familiar. Our sincere hope is that all of our sailors and their families around the world remain healthy and that we will all be able to do more sailing in 2021! For easy reading, I have made a few bullet points of the key points of the meeting:

• There is a strong desire to host our Championships, the Worlds and the Europeans, in 2021 and we will make every effort to do so. As is made clear in the event summary and the minutes of our meeting, a final decision regarding the Worlds in 2021 will be made at the end of January 2021. And, we have fun and exciting venues for all of our future events.

• Our membership was down about 30% worldwide; thank you very much to those sailors that are members of the class! Your support is important to our future.

• Sail royalties which are generated by the sale of sails were down. However, through very careful spending in 2020 and planned conservative spending in 2021, we will be able to keep the class financially sound.

• In the reports of the NCAs, there are pockets of growth in the class, such as in Croatia, and there is an interest in good used (and new) boats in Europe and in North America; this bodes well for the future.

• The traffic to our new website was up this year! Social media engagement increased mainly on Instagram by more than 3,000 followers, considered impressive given the lack of events. We strongly encourage posting photos and videos on our Facebook page and other social media outlets. Please send them to Piret... and we do have ad space for sale on the website and we will be publishing our rates very soon.

• Throughout the year, the Technical Committee, chaired by Mike Gozzard, worked hard to address the weights of our rudders and the supply of masts. There will be more information about the masts in the future.

• With an early open Technical Committee review and meeting on many of the proposals for the class rules and regulations, all but one, the proposal to increase the weight limit, was approved by the World Council. Please take a look at the specifics and bear in mind that these do not go into effect until approved by World Sailing.

• Changes were made to the constitution to reflect our incorporation as a non-profit in the US and to make our constitution clearly reflect our current practices as a class.

• Finally, the coach boat regulations which were not able to be implemented during our last Worlds Championship in Italy, have been addressed so that the regulations approved by the class in 2018 can be applied to IM24CA sanctioned events.

I am very grateful for the hard work of the NCA leaders, the Executive Committee, the Technical Committee and the advisors to our class during this most challenging year. We really have a fantastic group of sailors who are dedicated to making the Melges 24 class the best that it can be!

If you have questions, please ask! Now, let's go sailing!

Best,
Laura Grondin
IM24CA Chair

Find a detailed review of the decisions made at the AGM here.