Yachts & Yachting - July 2018

Above

The concept of

the Mixed Multihull

has been a success

• even if there
  have been some
  class diculties
  Below
  Could the Europe
  see a return
  as a women’s
  lightweight boat in
  the Singlehanded
  Mixed Dinghy?

havejusthadthisvoteontheevents

to be sailed in 2024. It also stated that

when we look to re-evaluate events

wemustre-evaluatemorethanone.

“hereasonbehinditwasthatinthe

pasteverytimeyouchangeoneclass

itwasamajorissue.herewerealot

of the Member National Authorities

(MNAs)thatwereworriedabout

the change in equipment, the cost of

replacing the equipment, and then

there were lobbies from classes.”

Andersen adds that by introducing a

longerprocessandputtingupmultiple

events for review, combined with putting

the selection of events irst, the view

was this would give smaller nations and

classestimetoadjusttochanges.By

implication, in theory it seems, this could

work to reduce the eicacy of lobbying

by classes and MNAs interested in

keeping speciic classes voting without a

long-term view of Olympic competition.

MIXED SINGLEHANDER?

he end result of the voting process

for the 2024 Olympic events saw two

submissions vying for inal selection

–seetheboxonthefacingpage.

Both proposed keeping Men’s and

Women’s Windsuring – though with

a re-evaluation of the equipment used;

changing the Men’s and Women’s

Doublehanded Dinghy to a Mixed

Double Handed Dinghy; and introducing

a Mixed Kitesuring event. Where the

submissions difered was on what event

wasbestfortheinalOlympicmedal

with one suggesting a Mixed Keelboat

event–mostlikelyatwopersonshort

coastal/ofshore race – and one a Mixed

Singlehanded Dinghy event, with little

consensus on what that might look like.

Ultimately,itwasthelatterofthetwo

options that made it though to inal

selection, though Andersen was keen

to point out that voting was close with

only a three-vote winning margin. It

also seems that Andersen’s personal

preference would have been the selection

ofthekeelboatoption.“Iwouldhave

been happy to see [the keelboat option]

selected. Certainly something that

has come out of this meeting in our

discussions is that World Sailing needs

tobedoingmoretodealwiththe

ofshoresideofthesport.Itisamajor

partofthissportandgoingforwardwe

will have to work out a way to include

the ofshore sailing world more.

“What I think the vote was mostly

around was that, at the moment, we

don’t have very many options for lighter

women. I think Council recognised

this.” Andersen adds that discussions

around the Mixed One Person Dinghy

arefocussedononeclassforheavier

men and one class for lighter women.

While the thrust of this argument is

truetoadegreeitisalsoaninescapable

JESUS RENDEDO/SAILING ENERGY; SILVIANO SANDONINI

INSIGHT WORLD SAILING

20 Yachts & Yachting July 2018 yachtsandyachting.co.uk