Team WA + chef Zane ( remember him from the nationals, sailing an A class )from the QLD place are hitting the drinks in the Residence I Vigneti del Garda.
The view from the balcony some 400m above the lake is awesome. For Windrush to gain any positions we need to get some top five place on the last day to move up the leader board. We have spent a lot of the regatta racing close with Roland Gaebler the new ITA president. Today we had an informal meeting after the sailing was cancelled after one race with light winds that was a bit of direction to the committee for the preference of the sailors. The new sail one design format was widely accepted and will go to ballot later in the year. I think that for Australia this will be good. There will be a grandfather clause and for Nationals etc we can do what we want but in the next 2 years we will be looking to have one design sails in the worlds and probably the Euro’s too. From then we will all have the same engine if it gets up. Talk at the meeting of 50 000 euro sail development budgets prior to China Olympics were on the table and there is an opinion that this is bad for the image of the class . The package that is being proposed is an all Ulman set up , main ,jib and kite. It is the pattern from the 2007 world champ main and jib + the 2008 Olympic kite. The price is estimated to be about 35-40% less than the current Euro prices and from what we can gather it will end up about the same as the Landy gear in Aus perhaps less or at least similar .The cloth will be APEN 06 3.0mil so the durability will be very good and quality is the primary objective. The committee have agreed to the primary objective that the sails be one design from one file from one cloth and that they be batch manufactured by Ulman with an emphasis on quality . Pablo came today to have another meeting with the committee and has told them of new equipment that he has obtained that will control the quality, plotters etc and a new bigger loft.
We don’t know if AITA will be the purchaser of a batch of sails or if they will be individually imported or just how that will work but it will be a good thing for all the boats to have the same engine. I remember when the Windrush class adapted the rules so that the sails were all supplied from one source, the racing became so much closer over night.
The mash potato is almost ready and the Italyiano sausage is almost pan fried so I better save this before we have to serve.
Ciao
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