Welcome 2024

Happy new years everyone and welcome to 2024. What an exciting year we have ahead of us as all your hard work and dedication will culminate in Paris or in doing the best if your campaigns.

Here are some of the latest items.

Discount for Membership

It’s time to become a member for 2024. In both classes, memberships are 10 euros less during the month of January, so please register now and the reduce your hassle.

Please remember that each person on the team must register, and you need to do so one by one. Please use the Canadian version of your name, with your first name, like Ben and your last name, like Remocker in that order.

Register for Worlds

The 2024 49er and FX Worlds in Lanzarote are upcoming. The cost to attend goes up on January 21, so might as well register now to ensure the lowest price of entry.

Schedule for Nacra Worlds and FX Europeans

We are shortening the schedule for both the FX Europeans and Nacra 17 Wolrds in La Grande Motte. Due to expected fleet sizes, all of these teams will race 5 days, but only the medal race will take place on day 6. The 49er will complete the typical schedule, with all teams competing in the morning of day 6 before the medal race in the afternoon of day 6.

The NOR will be released shortly.

Format Working Party so far

The 49er Format Working Party has held one meeting and will continue discussions. We are seeking input from the FX community… if you’re reading this, that means you. If you’re new the fleet and want to shape your future, or if you’re experienced and want to share your learnings, please reach out to Ben to join the group.

The Nacra 17 Working Party will put forward the following proposal to the community during the next AGM. The proposal aims to shift the emphasis of racing from upwind boatspeed to a broader group of skills, support the IOC in their aims at entertaining sports fans, and ensure there is a fair and worthy podium.

The Proposal:

2 days of qualifying where the top 20 boats advance to the gold fleet in a single fleet and only the placing carries forward. At the Olympics, this is not part of the format.

Gold fleet will have 3 days of racing with a 20 minute target time, with boundaries added if possible to avoid banging the corners and increase action. If possible, the first race of each day will be a reaching start to a Sail GP course configuration followed by two windward starts in our typical course configuration.

Then on the final day, there will be a final fleet race that is umpired. At the conclusion of that race, the bronze medalist will become known as the team in third place. The first and second place teams will move to a match race final, first to two wins, with the leader starting on one win. So it could be finished in one race or two.

The teams will enter from each end of the line the way America’s Cup has been doing it with a 10 second head start for the port entry into the box.

This format should produce a fair and worthy champion, provide an exciting climax to the regatta for fans and the viewing audience, and keep all teams (countries in the Games) involed through the final day.

It also should shift the emphasis of skills toward boathandling, reaching starting and downwind, and match racing, while upwind boatspeed will remain critical as well.

The Working Party asks that teams practice match racing during their training sessions to see what you think of it. The practice should be valuable as a training exersize and it would be great if many of you have hands on experience with this prior to our group discussions.