Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox - 470 - NZL- Day 7 - Hempel Sailing World Cup - Genoa - April 2019 - photo © Sailing Energy
Dear Recipient Name
Welcome to Sail-World.com's New Zealand e-magazine for May 17, 2019
(So far) Kiwi sailors are performing well in the four European Championships which are underway currently in Weymouth and Athens.
The Mens 470 crew of Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox placed second in the Mens 470 Europeans, last week, which backed up their excellent World Cup win in Genoa.
The two 470 regattas were sailed in fresh breezes in San Remo (Italy), and light airs in Genoa (Italy) – which says the Kiwis are performing well across the wind range.
The four European Championships, currently underway, are also Olympic Qualifiers for European nations who did not achieve Qualification at the 2018 combined Class World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, last August.
With their past results, and assuming the Kiwis can hold onto their current places (excluding days like yesterday) in the top bunch overall on the leaderboard, the 2020 shadow Olympic team would appear to have done enough to be deemed "medal capable". That standard is a requirement of the selection policies followed by many of the top nations, who believe they send sailors to the Olympic Regatta to win medals, and not the social experience.
New Zealand will probably have a team contesting six events in Tokyo. From the results we have seen since the end of the Rio Olympics, regardless of the "medal capable" Qualifying standard - which usually gets stretched to mean top 10 in a Worlds - all six are seriously capable of winning Olympic medals.
The difficulty facing the Olympic selectors will be whether to name a team early and tell the chosen sailors to stop worrying about being selected and just focus on the Olympics. That is more likely to happen in the events where there is only really one competitive crew. Where there are multiple crews in the Olympic viewfinder, expect the selection to be delayed.
Another High Noon for World Sailing
World Sailing has its Mid-Year Meeting this weekend in the local footy club in Chelsea, London. It will no doubt be as contentious as both the 2018 Annual Conference and 2018 Mid Year Meeting as the world body tries to ring the changes for the 2024 Olympic Events.
There are several stories in this edition, covering the various Olympic issues, which seem to change weekly.
The world's most numerous sailing class, the Laser, looks set for the chop – if the rankings of the Evaluation Panel are to be followed. However, they were careful to say the RS Aero or the Laser could be selected.
Other changes are up for confirmation, including the 470 as the Mixed Two Person Dinghy, and the RS:X as the Men's and Women's Windsurfer. There's yet another cunning plan for the Mixed Two Person Offshore Keelboat. World Sailing now says that light weather is to be expected about the time of the offshore race in 2024, which should make for a riveting live TV event.
One of the sadder aspects of the proposed changes is that the sailors seem to be very reluctant to stand up and make their views known.
Current Olympic and World Champion Dorian van Rijsselberghe is not one of those. The double Olympic Gold medalist is disappointed that the Evaluation Panel for the Windsurfer event did not go to a sea trial for the five options submitted. He didn't mince his words in saying so – as well as expressing his view on the shortcomings of the RS:X.
That means that the wind foiling options were not tested against the displacement boards, and the effect will be that the RS:X is going to be used for its fifth Olympic Regatta come 2024.
Just gone up is a story petition from the Finn sailors at the Europeans in Athens to World Sailing. The story also features a video of a hard-hitting speech by the presenter, which appeared to have been scripted or certainly approved by the Hellenic Sailing Federation and hinted of external action by one or more parties frustrated with the world body's deafness.
The sailor frustration has led to Gerardo Seeliger (ESP) to declare his candidacy for World Sailing President come the next election in 2020. The former Class President of the 29er, 49er and Finn classes, as well as being an active Finn Masters sailor is expected to have strong backing from Europe.
Top Finn sailor and current Olympic Champion, Giles Scott (GBR) has said he doesn't have a future in the Olympics past 2020, and will be concentrating full time on the America's Cup. The outcome of the 2018 Annual Conference, along with other decisions, mean that male 85kg plus sailors don't have Olympic options beyond 2020.
Maybe forming a Kiwi SailGP team is a good option for them, as the SailGP circuit looks to expand both with new teams and increased regattas.
We said previously that the San Francisco round of SailGP was a make or break for the new circuit. There is no doubt that aside from one shortcoming, it was an emphatic MAKE. But more of that later.
Changes in The Ocean Race
In this issue, we have two of a three-part series of an interview with Richard Mason, Executive Director of The Ocean Race. In the first part, he covers why Volvo has been dropped from the name of what was formerly the Volvo Ocean Race. Volvo is remaining as a very committed partner in The Ocean Race - and has been joined at the first-tier sponsor level by other Partners.
Part 1 of the TOR story is a very informative read about the thinking and strategy behind the change in branding, and the new opportunities that are opened up.
In Part 2, Richard Mason covers the strategy behind the two classes - the former VO65 one design and the "new" class the IMOCA60.
Surprisingly Mason says such is the level of interest, that there is only one of the eight VO65's left unspoken for, and even with talk of building a new one.
The IMOCA60 has been around for a while but is little known outside Europe. Now, Mason says the push is on to establish a viable IMOCA60 design that will allow the boats to be raced single-handed, two-handed or fully crewed (five plus an On-Board Reporter). That then means that an IMOCA60 team can attract ongoing sponsorship offering exposure in several sailing events, current IMOCA60 teams run a core team of six full-timers working in onshore and sailing capacities.
"What we are trying to do with the IMOCA60 is to invest and drive one offshore class to go across a multiple of races," is how Mason summarises the new TOR strategy.
In Part 3, which will go up on Friday night , we look at the course options and rationale. If Auckland is again selected as a stopover, the facilities developed for the 2021 America's Cup will be put to good use and will be a fabulous facility for a Stopover - with probably a fleet of around 12-14 boats.
Have your say
In this edition, we have a couple of stories on marine pests - which is the collective term for the underwater nasties which attach themselves to boat bottoms and get transferred from region to region. In one story, four northern New Zealand Councils are seeking your input on the options for an "acceptable" approach to controlling the spread of foreign marine growths - which are covered by the generic term "marine pests".
The options range from the status quo - which means the various local authorities make their own rules and standards; or there could be a common approach across the four regions to have consistent rules for clean hulls across Northland, Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty; or step up the action and cover more than hulls, including ballast water, aquaculture, bilge water and marine equipment.
Within the options, there are other choices which give the proposed measures some focus and their practical effect and impact on boat owners.
The current situation is that Northland has some quite clear rules, and undertakes about 2000 hull inspections per year. The other three - Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty have rules that could be described as fairly minimal by comparison.
Rather than have more regulation imposed, this is a better approach with some degree of consultation and feedback, and being given the opportunity to raise practical issues without having to do this in the context of some Council Hearing. Any new conditions will require co-operation from boat owners to be effective, and it will be useful to find out what most believe is an acceptable regime and one with which they would comply.
Of course, to be effective, all vessels must be covered from the humble family cruiser to cruise and cargo vessels - and most recreational sailors will be quick to point to overseas vessels as being the main culprits for the introduction of exotic organisms, particularly through the discharge of ballast water. However, this survey is aimed at controlling the spread of organisms by local craft.
Please take the time to make your input - even just as a thank you gesture to the four Councils for consulting with the boating community, rather than taking the easy way out of introducing rigid impractical regulation with draconian penalties, that just makes everyone's life unpleasant and achieves very little.
Look out for the Auckland Council team at stand 434 at the Hutchwilco Auckland Boat Show from 16-19 May at ASB Showgrounds. There will be marine pest information and a live tank display to help get your eye in for the nasties.
For all the latest news from NZ and around the world see below.
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Good sailing!
Richard Gladwell
NZ Editor
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