President’s 12th Letter - 19/06/2019

Dear friends,

 

We met in Istanbul in April for the EUROSAF General Assembly and also, with many of you, in London in May for World Sailing Mid Year meeting. At the General Assembly you had the opportunity to be updated with EUROSAF projects and also to give us a push! Thank you for that.

 

General Assembly

Thanks to Turkish Sailing Federation’s superb hospitality, we had a wonderful meeting in Istanbul on 13/04/2019 with 25 Members represented. You can peruse the meeting documents, especially the presentations of projects, which we expect will lead to wider cooperation in favour of sailing in Europe.

Next year’s General Assembly will meet in Zagreb on 28/03/2020 under the patronage of Croatia Sailing Federation.

 

Key Priorities v.3

On 14/05/2019, following the General Assembly, the Executive Board updated EUROSAF Key Priorities. Apart from deleting achieved goals and updating current ones, we introduced some important new short-term goals in order to expand EUROSAF sailing grounds:

  • Secure financial support for the Secretariat for 2020 onwards.
  • Adopt a team approach for projects and bring together specific Committee members according to their skills and availability.
  • Launch the RO Training Study, a master thesis research into RO distribution and training systems across Europe.
  • Set up EUROSAF Class Circuits in collaboration with class associations to promote enhanced and cross-European participation in class events.
  • Push for Para Sailing expansion in Europe and promote inclusive events.
  • Draft an Erasmus+ call to fund the ESA-WEST project.
  • Set up the ESA-WAVE project as a one-week test event for the ESA-WEST project.
  • Define and promote a better integration of EUROSAF into World Sailing.

 

EUROSAF Mixed Offshore European Championship

The Executive Board decided to organise a first EUROSAF Mixed Offshore European Championship. The goal is to help small European MNAs access the future offshore Olympic event at a high level of competition and to help test, showcase, and promote the new event.

The EMOEC is planned to start in Venice (Italy) on 08/10/2019 with an in-port race (expected in front of San Marco square), followed by a coastal day race, and then an offshore race (two nights out, following WS preliminary guidelines for the Olympic event), finishing in Trieste (Italy) on 11/10/2019, the day before the famous Barcolana race. Eight identical L30 boats will be provided at a cost to the mixed teams. The L30 is the boat chosen by WS for the World Sailing’s Offshore World Championship to be held by the end of next year in Valletta (Malta) in conjunction with the Middle Sea Race. The Nastro Rosa event will be available from September as a training ground for this new EUROSAF European Championship.

The Notice of Race is under preparation and will be sent out in the coming weeks.

 

2019 EUROSAF Events

Yacht Club Locarno, Switzerland, hosted the second EUROSAF Club Sailing European Championship from 21 to 25 May on Lago Maggiore. Next year’s edition will be hosted in the Czech Republic.

The EUROSAF Para Inclusion European Championship took place in Gmunden, Austria, from 27 May to 2 June with great success. The stress was on inclusion in the 2.4mR and Hansa 303 classes; sailors with and without physical limitations sailed together on Lake Traunsee to race an excellent regatta.

The next EUROSAF Events where you can confirm your teams’ attendance in 2019 are:

Event

Where

From

To

Women Match Race Europeans

Ledro, Italy

20/06/2019

23/06/2019

Youth Match Race Europeans

Ledro, Italy

03/07/2019

06/07/2019

L30 European Championship

Garda, Italy

02/09/2019

05/09/2019

Pirat European Championship

Bayramoğlu, Turkey

15/09/2019

20/09/2019

Mixed Offshore European Ch.

Venice-Trieste, Italy

08/10/2019

11/10/2019

Open Match Race Europeans

Šibenik, Croatia

09/10/2019

13/10/2019

 

Heading into summer, I wish you a wonderful sailing season.

 

Best regards,

 

Josep M. PLA

President

EUROSAF