Optimist, Open Skiff, Youth & Olympic Sailing Blog

Could a foiling singlehanded dinghy such as the Wazsp supplant the Laser for the 2024 Paris/Marseilles Olympics? This May 25th, World Sailing issued an invitation to tender for the 2024 Olympic single-handed dinghies, both for male and female sailors. While the tenders have to be submitted to World Sailing in a short time frame, by June 27 2018, the selection process could last well over a year, up to November 2019. There are many considerations in the tender documents, including professional qualifications, technical qualifications, retail pricing, competition law, to name just a few. We will not cover these here, but they may become paramount, as World Sailing is apparently being put on notice or sued for anti-trust / competition reasons (there is a report that it was served at its recent London meeting). There are also unknowns regarding how World Sailing will derive fees from the selected equipments (hulls, sails), as the organization seems in dire need for increased rev

Here are selected short videos of what might be the single handed boats for the 2024 Olympics. They are into three groups : key contenders, other possible boats, and much less likely yet worth noting. Note that none of the manufacturers and classes have officially indicated they will make a submission to World Sailing. Note also that this is not intended to be a comprehensive list. At the same time, the 2024 Olympic singlehanded dinghy is very probably in this list. Here is our previously published blog post with some analysis about the selection criteria and potential contenders for the 2014 Olympics . MAIN CONTENDERS LASER   RS AERO MELGES 14 DEVOTI ZERO WAZSP OTHER POSSIBLE BOATS EUROPE BYTE  MUCH LESS LIKELY YET WORTH NOTING DEVOTI ONE RS 700

On the heels of its London meeting blunder, that brought up « mixed single handed dinghy » to the 2024 Olympics (nobody knows what it means yet), World Sailing is coming up with a strategy for 2018-2022. The strategy is four-pronged: a) Inspiration and Participation b) Membership and Governance c) Sport Integrity d) Leadership in sport. These are all aspects of the sport that it would be hard to disagree with.  Each so called pillar provides implementation strategies. According to reporting by Sailing Illustrated, a key topic of informal conversations at the recent World Sailing meeting in London was the financial issues faced by World Sailing, which is expected to run out of funds in 2019, unless borrowing against future revenues. See Sailing Illustrated interview with Paul Henderson, former President of IYRU, the predecessor of World Sailing, which discusses the financial situation of World Sailing, including the costly and highly questionable move of its headquarters to Lo

Here is a youth athlete - Dimitris Papadimitriou from Greece - who did already a lot, including bronze at the Opti Worlds at age 14, Youth 4.7 World Champion at age 16, and Youth Radial World Champion at age 17. Dimitris is now sailing the Laser Standard witht the aim of representing Greece at the 2020 Olympics. Check this intereview and video footage at the 2016 Laser 4.7 worlds. Watch the interview we did with Dimitris Papadimitriou, discussing his transition from the Opti to the 4.7 and then the Radial.

The following sailors have qualified to represent the U.S.A. at the 2018 Optimist North American Championship in Nuevo Vallarta, Nayarit, Mexico. They will be coached by Pepe Bettini, Joakim Karlsen, and Cristian Noe. Congratulations! Stephan Baker Peter Barnard Blake Behrens Wyatt Bischoff Carter Cox Griggs Diemar Katharine Doble Peter Foley Kate Gibbons Griffin Gigliotti Benjamin Honig Michael Kirkman Scott Mather Lucy Meagher Clark Morris Cody Roe Sara Schumann Leopold Seuss Sheridan Shaw Jonathan Siegel Tony Slowik III Anna Vasilieva Samara Walshe John Wood IV See full list of registrants -- http://2018northamericans.optiworld.org/en/default/races/race-inscriptions Source: https://www.usoda.org/

"Mental skills are not the elements to work on last. They are the pieces of the puzzle that fit in every step of the way! Mental skills that I commonly work on with athletes include the “Dirty Dozen”: 1) Knowing your Values 2) Understanding your Motivation 3) Engaging SMART Process focused goal-setting 4) Building Self-Talk Habits 5) Developing Routines for Mindful Attention 6) Utilizing Mental Imagery 7) Practicing Self-Attunement 8) Hanging in there with Anxiety Tolerance 9) Getting your needs met through Assertive Communication 10) Channeling your (negative) Emotions into positive effort 11) Staying the course with Energy Management 12) Using Anxiety Reduction (because you can, not because you have to)"  Check the full article by Tim Herzog   http://ussailing.blog/mental-training/

Olympic Legend Paul Elvstrom Sailing his Finn in 1960 Following the announcement of the sailing events for the 2024 Olympics, the Finn Class put out a statement, that claims that « the women’s event that suits women of around 70 kg » … « will be changed. » While the submission approved by the World Sailing Council clearly specifies a targeted weight of 70 kg for female sailors for this new event, Balazs Hajdu, the President of the International Finn Association, said in the press statement, “We believe that singlehanded sailing is one of the pinnacles of Olympic sailing and we are glad to see that it was decided to give a chance to lighter weight women to sail at the Olympics in a singlehanded boat ." And he continues, "This gives many countries around the world a chance to join Olympic sailing and also create youth programmes for young sailors with Olympic dreams.” (bold/italics by the writer of this post) How the change would be done? Via the equipment committ

Why is World Sailing Targeting 70 Kg (155 lbs) for its new single-handed female event (part of its new single-handed mixed event)? Today, the World Sailing Council adopted the M22 submission, overruling the vote of its events committee, for the 2024 sailing Olympics, to be held in Marseilles, France. The M22 submission is from the Romanian Sailing Federation. It keeps several categories: Laser Standard, Laser Radial, 49er, 49erFX and foiling Nacra. It also keeps the windsurfing, but on new equipment. The 470 is still there too, but as a mixed event. There is a new « mixed kite event » on « new equipment ».  And finally, there is another new event — a bizarre « Mixed One-Person Dinghy » - that will allow for the Finn to remain in the Olympics as equipment for men, and there will be new equipment for women. After much back and forth, the 470 and Finn would remain in the Olympics, but at a cost: the 470 would be a mixed event (2 sailors instead of 4), and the Finn will have to s

Diam 24 Multihull in Action If you bring in new events, new equipments to the Olympics, those should be proven both to provide amazing sailing and to be amazing to watch, so as to be the best choices possible both for the sailing community and the general public. Very fortunately, our sport already offers such options, which would attract the world’s best sailors, and thanks to advances in filming sailing events, would offer the best olympic sailing show ever. Sadly, the events and equipments in Submission M36, which was voted by the Events Committee on May 12, are very unlikely to deliver the best the sport can offer, both for the sailing community and the general public. Hopefully, it's still time for World Sailing to reconsider and to do much better. Here are videos of 4 types of events/equipments that would be perfectly feasible to bring into the Olympics. They would attract the best sailors, and they would generate massive interest and excitement for the sport. WATCH

Diam 24 in action -- the One Design Trimaran used for the Tour de France à la Voile Note: this is an indicative playlist - it's not a formal suggestion/recommendation ; the idea is just to help broadening the consideration of options for equipments and events, in light of what is currently available. Although one event by type of boat is presented, there would be male, female and mixed events in the lineup. MY 2024 SAILING OLYMPICS -- YOUTUBE PLAYLIST: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcE83K79ViuLDhgI2xmfutTCgQhoTWhRN The lineup is as follows: - high pace coastal raid in a multi-hull - Diam 24 or equivalent - match racing - in strict one design identical keel boats - that could be with smaller teams of say 4 or 5 sailors - foiling dinghy - either Open or 2 events, one for men, one for women, in an affordable one design class such as the Wazsp or equivalent - foiling windsurf - in a one design class to be determined - 49er - which could be made a mixed event i

After delays and several date changes, the Canadian Optimist Dinghy Association has announced the Notice of Race for its 2018 championships, to be held in late August in Squamish, British Columbia. The Canadian Optimist championships were held in 2015 in the same venue and attracted 57 participants, mostly local ones (as compared to some 150 participants in Halifax in 2017). In 2015, sailing was only possible in Squamish one out of the 5 days of the championships, because of bad weather. High costs are probably a key reason for the low participation. One can also compare that past participation to Optimist CORK (in Kingston, ON), which attracted 128 participants in 2017 - even the less-attended Fall CORK regatta attracted more sailors)  Some clubs, for example in the Montreal area, presently don’t have advanced Optimist teams and are unlikely to be present. This year, it is already known that some of the best sailors in Canada will be absent from the national championship, beca

This is an excellent contribution about planning one’s season for success, through an Annual Training Plan (ATP), by Justin Norton. « At the core of the ATP we are looking at the events that matter the most. This could be the Olympics or a club championship and requires some thought when determining what your most important regatta is. We will refer to these as “A” events, and we can only realistically select two of these in a season. The reason for this is because they require a high level o f freshness as well as a build and taper period leading into them. Typically the events will be spaced within 1-2 months of each other. » https://internationalsailingacademy.com/2017/09/creating-annual-training-plan/ NOTE: the Canadian Optimist class has not really integrated that into their thinking. They are expecting the top sailors to participate in both the Canadian championships and the Worlds, which are just about 1-2 DAYS apart (if you exclude travel time) and are … 10

2018 Nacra 15 World Champions from Belgium Henri Demesmaeker and Frederique van Eupen with their coach Sebbe Godefroid With the controversy surrounding the process for revising equipments and events for future Summer Olympics, it’s interesting to analyze what has been decided, by World Sailing and IOC, in 2016, for the 2018 Youth Olympics, to be held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in October. There will be 5 competitions in the sailing category: 2 for Windsurfing, 2 for Kite boarding and 1 for Catamarans. The two windsurfing competitions, one for men, one for women, will be raced on Techno 293+. The two kiteboarding competitions, one for men, one for women, will be IKA twin tip racing.  The catamaran competition will be mixed and sailed on the Nacra 15. In total, there will be 100 competitors: 48 in windsurfing, 24 in kiteboarding and 28 in catamaran. In terms of equipment, there will be a total of 48 windsurfs, 24 kite boards and 14 catamarans. (86 « boats » - according to

Coralie Vittecoq, a promising Canadian Laser Radial Sailor from the Province of Québec When one looks at the Optimist and Open Bic regatta calendar, something is clear, there are many quality options for regattas in Europe. For example, in the Open Bic, you have the EuroChallenge with three major regattas, in Spain, Italy and France. This year, the Worlds also take place in Europe - in Spain. For the Optimist, huge regattas are taking place in locations such as Lake Garda (Italy), Los Palamos (Spain) and Maubuisson (France). We are talking about events with over 500, sometimes over 1000 participants. Interestingly, top US and Canadian Laser sailors are set to participate in the upcoming European championships organized by the Laser class. Those championships cover the Laser standard (men) and Laser Radial, with separate competitions for men and women. Note that the Laser 4.7 also attracts big fleets in Europe, but is reserved for youth sailors. Here are the US and Canad

The fact that this petition exists is real bad news for the sport and its governance, as it reveals deep, serious, problems, but on the other hand, it's good news to see such a substantial online movement - nearly 10,000 signatures at the time of writing this short note. Clearly, sailors all around the world want meaningful sailing competitions at the Olympics. Here in Canada, I enquired about the decision process, and it's a very small group of people making the decisions, writing the submissions, representing the country. It's a very small group, and there was barely any consultations outside that group. It's likely the case in most countries. Therefore, with thousands of signatures, this petition probably has more weight than all the submissions, open letters, working papers etc. produced by World Sailing and its official delegates. The irony: while the Internet is providing a voice to all those concerned about recent developments, this very small g

This clip from a newspaper in Saint Barth, in the Caribbean, may help understand how the French help youth sailors becoming elite athletes. It talks about a 14 year old boy, Kyllian Guillemassy, who aims at joining one of France’s youth elite sailing centers. To seek that selection, he did participate in the Spring Laser Cup, where he placed 14th out of 50 participants, and he spent a week in La Rochelle for taking a series of tests. If he is selected, he will attend, in September a government-supported sports / high school program specifically designed towards the development of sailing athletes. Precision: it's a public high school. This type of sailing development path is obviously a key for developing top elite athletes. In most countries, such athletic development path simply does not exist. Note : age 14 is very young to sail the Laser, and even those too heavy for the Opti typically have not yet reached the weight for properly sailing the Laser 4.7 and obviously not

I just read the Richard Gladwell article in Sail-World — «  2024 Olympics: Scene set for a tsunami of change  » and the supporting material, particularly the letter by Kim Andersen, President of World Sailing, addressed to World Sailing’s Board, Council and Committee members and MNAs.  I have not yet fully digested or even comprehended all the information, particularly the 2024 Events & Equipment Working Party Report - it seems unfortunately that World Sailing makes things unnecessarily complicated. Yet I am a bit puzzled by the options indicated in Kim Andersen’s letter. So here is my take. The Open Bic - a Future Olympic Dinghy for Light Weight Female Sailors? Andersen writes that « to accommodate the submission for a broader representation of physiques for women and men, we should evaluate two possibilities for dealing with the issue » and he offers two options: 1) adding a new offshore mixed event, and 2) adding two single-handed technical disciplines. Let’s start with