The ISAF Events Committee Make Their Vote For 2016

Mixed Multihull is on the final road to colour up the Summer Olympics....

The ISAF Events Committee just finished the voting procedure at the midyear conference in St. Petersburg and there was no discussion for the comeback of the Multihull. There was also a little Chance with the Submissions from the Netherlands to get 2 Multihulls (Women + Men) in with the 5:5 slide.

But finally the biggest group with the same submissions went through. The Keelboats (Starclass and Women Matchracing) are completly out. It seems the finacial crisis and less money in the MNAs make it impossible to finance Olympic Keelboat sailing.

Also Kiteboarding went out early in the voting procedure. So no colorful and action loaded flying surfers.

Tomorrow the ISAF council can change the vote again that the Events Com. made. So there is still an open vote to fix it 100%. But with the view to the submissions again, it looks as though Keelboat Sailing does not the strong voice as in the past few years. Also Sailing Nations like GBR and AUS had no Keelboat in.

Now the focus should be back on the format of racing and how we can make sailing a spectator and media friendly sport. IOC gives pressure out to reach higher media value and better ticket sale. Also ISAF need more money from IOC. We hope the ISAF have not missed the chance to upgrade Olympic sailing with a high performance Multihull. We need to have a boat like the Tornado which fly´s the hulls in any wind condition.

So there is a massive need for a spectacular class in the Olympic Arena. With our Tornado Speedsailing www.speedsailing.org and the high quality one design we have the perfect solution for Rio 2016 and the ISAF World Cup Series.

But it looks like they send us again (like 1999 in Quiberon) into an expensive evaluation event. We already have one of the best price-performance ratio in Olympic sailing and a IOC TV award and many mixed teams at the top.

We hope ISAF realize there is no need for an evaluation event. But if we get one, real olympic sailors should test the boats in all wind and wave conditions and decide what class they like for the future. We are ready for this Challenge.

More news tomorrow.