Agenda IACA Takapuna

Beste zeilers,

ter voorbereiding op de jaarvergadering van de IACA in Takapuna, stuurde president Andrew Landenburger ons de agenda met uitleg.

De brief en zijn consequentie zal op de  DACA jaarvergadering worden besproken (17:00 uur, 18 januari, Rotterdamse Zeilvereniging, Kralingse Bos,  Rotterdam)

mvg

Jan Groot

Dear Presidents,

The Agenda for the 2014 World General Meeting has been finalised. We have received a number of submissions which will require you to vote on in New Zealand. I ask you now to use this time to evaluate the proposals within your respective countries. If you cannot be at the WGM in Takapuna I request that you nominate a delegate from your national association in writing or forward a proxy vote to both Piet Saarberg and myself. These are important issues in our class and deserve the attention of all members worldwide so would like to stress the importance that each national association makes a strong attempt to evaluate carefully the opinions of all members of the class.

The following items are listed in the Agenda.

8. Regulatory and Technical Affairs (Alterations in the I.A.C.A. Constitution, Championship Rules, Ballots etc.)

i           Worlds rotation (Australia, Italy, Belgium)

ii          Changes to the constitution to allow Internet voting (IACA, All Nations to date)

iii         Removal of rule 8.2 (UK, Denmark, Spain )

iv         Removal rule 8.2 for a trial period (2 years) (Germany, Denmark, UK, Brazil, Switzerland)

v          rule 8.1 - reduction of 1.5 m rule (Germany, Denmark, UK)

vi               Removal of rule 8 on a trial basis for 1 voting period with a ballot following.  (Denmark , Germany, UK)

A description of the above items are as follows.

Worlds Rotation

World championships should be run once every calendar year, preferably with no less than 6 months between events. Preference should be given to helping developing National A fleets if they are able to run such an event. The rotation should be evenly spread between the National fleets and Continents. No one country should hold 2 events in any 6 year period unless there is no other suitable option available. Any National fleet could bid to hold a World championship at any time, however as a guide the following rotation is suggested:-
EUR(2015),EUR(2016),Americas(2017),EUR(2018),APAC(2019),EUR(2020),EUR(2021),Americas(2022),EUR(2023),APAC(2024), etc.

Motivation - to make a more even spread of world championships world wide and give more countries the opportunity to host a a world championship.

Changes to the constitution to allow Internet voting

11.3 An appropriate ballot paper shall be prepared  by the I.A.C.A Committee within 2 months after the WGM and will be airmailed or emailed to the last recorded address of all Fleet Members of the National Associations.

11.4 Each Fleet Member will have 1 vote. Each Fleet Member shall personally return the completed ballot paper directly to the Returning Officer. The Returning Officer must receive the completed ballot paper within 4 weeks of the date of the original circulation and it must comply with the ballot rules in order to be valid.

Motivation - Under the current rules the class are required to send by mail and official ballot paper. This is costly to the class and requires a great deal of time to execute a ballot. These small changes would allow the Class to conduct a ballot by use of more modern means over the internet.

Removal of rule 8.2

As it says, this would allow centre boards to be inserted from the bottom.

Motivation was primarily to allow current boat owners more options to use modern centreboard designs without the need to purchase a new boat or build specialized construction to get around rule 8. 2 This discussion started during Barcelona after seeing the latest DNA J boards and the requirement for boats with extra large cases to accept these boards from the top.

Removal rule 8.2 for a trial period (2 years) Part 1 of a two stage submission from Germany

First: We suggest to remove Rule 8.2 on a trial base for 2 years.
          This submission is supported by Great Britain, Denmark, Switzerland, Brasil and Germany

This is essentially exactly the same submission as above but with a trial period attached.

Motivation – to realise the advantages and disadvantages of removing this rule before making a permanent change to the class rules.

rule 8.1 - reduction of 1.5 m rule – Part 2

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Second:     We suggest to alter Rule 8.1 to reduce the midline distance.
                   This submission is supported by Great Britain, Denmark and Germany.

Motivation - to simplify the rules to allow full development within the class including the possibility to explore foiling possibilities.

Removal of rule 8 on a trial basis for 1 voting period with a ballot following. 

In the case that the removal of rule 8.1 or rule 8.2 should not make it to a ballot at the 2014 AGM, Denmark proposes that a trial period from the NZ AGM to then 2015 AGM (that's about a year and a half) is established, where it’ll be allowed to sail boats as if rule 8 did not exist. Everybody will be allowed to test any kind of foil configuration at own risk, well knowing that it will no longer be allowed at the end of the trial period.

At the end of the trial period, we should have a ballot about removal of rule 8.1 and 8.2.

Motivation:

The purpose of this trial period is to have a better foundation for making the right decision for the class, on removal of rule 8.1 and/or 8.2 or not.

Everybody who makes experiments with new foils outside the current rule 8, should be asked to share sailing experience, performance, what's changed to hulls and foils with the rest of the community on our web page before the 2015 AGM, so everybody can see what it takes, what the cost would be and how it performs. That could be made a mandatory "price" for racing outside rule 8 - just a thought.

As the whole issue over the centre board rules has been widely debated I thought it would be good to include a letter written by Thomas Paasch explaining in more detail the reasons behind their final proposal.

Letter from Thomas Paasch

Since Team New Zealand started foiling, foiling catamarans have been everywhere in the media. New foiling Cat classes have emerged, old classes have tested lifting foils etc. And of cause the question about foiling has also been raised in the A-Class.

We have already seen what happened since it’s been proposed to remove rule 8.1 and 8.2. Some potential new A-Cat sailors, or A-Cat sailors who want to upgrade to a new boat, have kept their money in their pockets, waiting to see the outcome of the New Zealand meeting. This is harmful to the growth of the class.

My concern is, that if removal of 8.1 and/or 8.2 doesn’t make it to a ballot, it will pretty likely pop up again at the meeting in 2015. In the mean time other classes and more experiments may have pushed the development of lifting foils, and again someone will question why the A-Class is not part of that development. And we will once again sit in a limbo, waiting for a decision, and like now, our decisions will be based on theories, hypotheses and maybe even fear.

This proposal should help us get some proper knowledge to base our decisions upon in 2015, should we not get a decision by all Class members this time around.

If we, during a limited test period, find that a foiling solution outside rule 8, will beat us all significantly in any conditions around the course, we need to be careful that we don’t split the fleet, make all existing boats obsolete and kill the class by removing rule 8. 

If we find that a foiling solution will be successful in over medium conditions and suffer badly in the light stuff, we won’t have the same concerns, because such a solution wouldn’t be competitive. We could remove rule 8 and let the development continue slowly like it usually does.

If we find that the best all-round solution is pretty close to what we have today, but could be achieved a lot cheaper for the sailors by removing 8.2 - then that’s definitely worth a rule change.

I don’t see a perfect solution, because this is delicate question, maybe even a game changer, and removing rule 8 in full or in parts could be as wrong as not doing it. But I’m concerned with leaving the class with uncertainty about upcoming rule changes. If we after the NZ meeting are left with the feeling that a proposal for the same rule change may come up again at the 2015 meeting, I would like to use that period to get as much knowledge about the consequences as possible, to do a ballot based on the best knowledge, not on gut feeling, hypotheses or fear.

Should we have a ballot on 8.1 and 8.2 after the NZ meeting, the class has spoken, and everybody should accept that answer for some years to come, and not put that same question up again at the next meeting.

I hope you see my motivation and concerns - it’s not that I want to slip a rule change in through the back door, personally I’m split 50/50 between opening it up or preserve what we’ve got. I don’t have the means or knowledge to do any testing myself, so I too would be run over by the “outlaws” in a testing period, should they be successful.

I await your responses with interest.

Kind regards,

Andrew Landenberger

IACA President