Dan: The idea came up last summer, as the town of Murcia and the Spanish Sailing Federation were interested in organising a new event for the Olympic Classes. As there already are many major regattas for the Olympic Classes, we discussed other possibilities which would be interesting for both EUROSAF as well as the organisers in Murcia. EUROSAF came up with the idea that sailing needs new events, which showcase new exiting classes and disciplines in our sport, which already is growing and has a potential to become attractive as Olympic disciplines as well as international classes/discipline in the future.

29er: What does EUROSAF see in a high performance championship that makes this a worthy investment?

Dan: It is important for EUROSAF to stimulate the development in sailing, both for existing boats, but we also have an strong obligation to support the development of the sport, showcasing the new trends, boats and formats. At the same time we need to develop our event in order to become more media and spectator friendly. The better we can expose our sport in both traditional and new media, the easier it will be to recruit new sailors to the local sailing clubs. The competition with other sports is strong, and sailing needs a more modern and trendy profile in order to attract the youth of the world. Skiing has successfully done this with Border Cross, Half Pipe etc. now in the Olympics – sailing needs to do the same.

29er: The Danish women have been very successful recently in the 29er. And not just one team. How did Denmark come to have such a deep women's skiff fleet?

Dan: First of all it is the young sailors themselves that has been attracted by the 29er as a new modern skiff dinghy. But the Danish Sailing Association has especially been supporting 2-person dinghy sailing through the last 10-15 years in order to grow this part of the sport again. First this was done intorducing the Hobie 405 and many of these crews moved to 29er, and with regard to the men to the 49er. The last 6 years we have been further supporting club sailing with strong financial support from our sponsor TORM (shipping company) with a programme consisting of many hundreds of RS Feva dinghies. Many of those crews (both boys and girls) move on to the 29er. When we had the ISAF Youth Worlds in 2008, we secured that all the 29er’s were sold in Denmark to clubs and young sailors, and this really gave a big boost to skiff sailing for younger sailors. We also created a TORM Youth Grand Prix series, where all the young sailors can compete, no matter which class; This means that your friends attend the same regattas, despite sailing other classes. Thereby you strengthen the social relations in the sport, which is as important as the competition.

29er: We've heard rumors that some 29erXX teams have been included on the Danish national team. Is this true? If so, how does it work?

Dan: Several of the women crews in 29er have also 29erXX rigs and sails. And they are already much exited about the possibility of having a Women Skiff at the Olympics in 2016. Therefore it has been decided to include those crews in our national development squad, while we are waiting the decision in ISAF about the Olympic events and equipment. Again, we keep the whole group of sailors together, across the classes in order to motivate their sailing career and make them stay in the sport.

29er: If you could give a country without much skiff sailing some advice on how to get started, what would it be?

Dan: Younger crews should have a possibility to try skiff sailing as soon as possible, alongside with other boats.  In the beginning they might only be able to handle the boats in light and medium winds, but they will quite quickly adapt the skills and sail the boat also in stronger wind conditions – and they will love it, because it is fast, fun and exiting. During the ISAF Youth Worlds in Denmark in 2008, I especially talked with many of the young crews in the doublehanded dinghy and multihull, respectively the 29er and SL16. Many of the crew came from other more traditional boats, but there was not any doubt in their minds, they really felt that those kind of boats were fun to sail. They had big smiles on their faces every day.

29er: If you could write the slate for the 2016 Olympics, what would it include?

Dan: If I personally should recommend a slate for future Olympics, it should include both world wide spread classes, where many different smaller and larger nations can compete, but the rest of the disciplines MUST be high performance and thereby fast and visually attractive for spectators and TV-media and live-streaming on Internet. Among the last four disciplines there should be skiff for both men and women , multihull with double trapeze and asymmetrical spinnaker and personally I believe that kiteboarding as soon as possible should be included in the Olympics. It is a problem with only 10 medals in sailing, and I personally believe that ISAF should ask IOC for more medals in the future; Other sports are getting more medals, but we cannot expect to have more sailors. This can be solved by partly continental qualifiers for the Olympics, so as many countries as possible get a possibility to qualify for the Olympics  at their continent. Two more medals would help sailing to have a better spread of events/disciplines, including the ones that can expose the sport to spectators and live media.

2 clinics are planned in Switzerland before and after the European Championships.

July 12-16 - For beginners - Pre-European Clinic (B) will be held with 6 29ers available, coached by Nathalie Keller. See the attached for more information. Clinic information

July 25-29 - "Go 29er Camp" will be held to introduce new sailors to the 29er, on the beautiful island of Brissago.

For more information: Markus Blaesi; This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Antoine Screve and Mac Agnese won the 29er Midwinters West, held in Coronado, California over the March 26-27 weekend.

A spectacular weekend in Coronado, and a good warm up  for the 29er Nationals in Coronado this year. The host club did an outstanding job running the races, and getting plenty of sailing in, In addition to thier hospitality, the weather turned out great. In addition Coach Jon from Coronado, was on the warter working with many of the newer teams.
Friday's conditions were mostly sunny with 6-10 kts of breeze, cool but not cold. Saturday, mostly sunny with breeze 8-14, and in the low 70's. and on Sunday mostly sunny skies and breeze from 6-12 knots.

There were more "travel" teams this year, as well as out of state sailors partnering with locals.  Two teams from Victoria Canada, a sailor from Toronto, a team and a skipper from Seattle, a new team from Conneticut, a sailor from Florida. From California, there were teams from teams from San Franciso, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, Long beach, Newport Beach and of course San Diego.

The regatta this year saw more new junior teams assembled, many with big plans on competeing nationally and abroad. (5) all girl teams with
1 boy/ girl team filled out the fleet. There were mostly all juniors competing at the event. A number of newly formed teams are really comming in to good results.

Special recognition for "Sportmanship" from the race committee went to teams John Merlett and Mackenzie Cook from Santa Cruz, as well as Sophie Papp and Mady Innes from Victoria Canada.

In the end, in 1st Place went to Mac Agnese and Antoine Screve, 2nd Place went James Moody and Tyler Macdonald, and 3rd place went to Connor Kelter and Paris Henken.
Results

The German Gorge sisters, Jule & Lotta, were at the top of the podium for the first EuroCup event of 2011.  37 teams representing 13 nations all gathered in Spain over the weekend.  Fairly light winds of 5-10 knots were on the course over the weekend, with one of the 3 days not being able to be sailed due to little to no wind. Nevertheless, the 37 teams were able to stretch their legs and get out on the water for 8 races and a much needed winter break. Thanks for Eduard Rodes and the Spanish hosts for a great start to the 2011 EuroCup season.  Full results here

Next up: Cavalaire, France; April 22-25

Contact: Nathalie Roullier; This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it