ISAF

International Sailing Federation

ISAF Olympic classes decision confirms windsurfing/kiteboarding trials - politics win.

Kiteboard/Windsurfer - Men and Women (subject to Evaluation)
One Person Dinghy - Men and Women (Laser and Laser Radial)
Second One Person Dinghy - Men (Finn)
Skiff - Men and Women (49er and an Evaluation Trial for the Women's boat)
Two-person Multihull (Mixed - to be selected from and Evaluation Trial)

Windsurfing and kiteboarding still head to head for 2016 Olympics

An important step has been taken today for Kiteboarding being part of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro 2016. The ISAF events committee confirmed on their mid-year meeting in St. Petersburg, that Kiteboarding will be evaluated alongside windsurfing for both men and women, with a decision to be taken in November 2012. With a full-on battle between the dinghies and the keelboat lobby, the boards issue was only a secondary area of interest for the delegated from all over the world.

ISAF meeting to decide Olympic makeup : the lunatics move to take over the asylum?

Part 1 of a 2 part review of the fraught process as ISAF try to arrive at a consensus on the Olympic event composition. The ISAF’s dropping of the multihull for the 2012 Olympics, was not well received, and looks set to be righted in 2016. The nonsense of bracketing Windsurfing with Kiteboarding remains to be resolved.

ISAF World Cup, Spain – Ashley still in third into the medal race

Tom Ashley retains his place in third going into the medal race for the Men’s RS:X after coming off the water with a fourth and an eighth on the penultimate day sailed in similar conditions to day four.

ISAF World Cup, Spain: Tom Ashley continues to climb

Past halfway and seven NZL crews in top ten. The ISAF World Cup Regatta for Olympic classes on in Spain is now past the halfway mark with qualifying rounds complete and three days of racing left to determine the medals. Tom Ashley continues to climb through the standings gaining five places overnight and moving up into fourth overall.

ISAF World Cup, Spain: Light and shifty on day two and Ashley comes back

Racing continued for the kiwi Olympic class sailors in Spain overnight sailing day two of the ISAF World Cup Regatta with very different conditions to those experienced on day one. “As promised, a better day today!” says Tom Ashley. “Much more reasonable conditions, but more importantly I didn't sail like a ‘muppet’ so results were much more respectable”

ISAF World Cup, Spain - Tom Ashley had "a very bad day"

Tom Ashley lies 22nd in the Men’s RS:X and was candid in describing how day one was for him: - “Had a very bad day! Conditions were pretty extreme - 25-35 knots blowing from the North. I placed 34 and 12. “In the first race I had my equipment set up horribly and just struggled to get going. Then I had a swim on the first downwind and took ages to get up and sailing again. On the second lap I managed to get moving a bit but the damage was done. The second race was better- at least I was in the race although still not in front.

New Zealand contingent in Mallorca, Spain for ISAF Sailing World Cup

A strong contingent of New Zealand’s Olympic class sailors are in Palma de Mallorca, Spain for the third of seven regattas which make up the prestigious ISAF Sailing World Cup. Tom Ashley is the only board sailor representing New Zealand.

Rio 2016: It's Time To Bite The Bullet - windsurfing at the Olympics

The deadline for making submissions to the ISAF Mid Year Meeting in St.Petersburg, Russia is 1200hrs UTC on March 10th. The statistics show that there are 2.9 million windsurfers in Germany alone. Extrapolate that world wide and it's easy to come to the conclusion that there are more windsurfers on the planet that any other sort of sailor. The bad news is that there are supposedly serious and responsible people within ISAF who think that windsurfing and kiteboarding should be combined into one event as a biathlon. If this was not so serious, it would be laughable. Both the windsurfing and the kiteboarding communities are strongly against this idea. Small and emerging sailing nations will be quick to understand that this will double the cost of the 'boards' medal and exclude a lot of them because they either don't have a kitesurfer or a windsurfer worthy of a place in the Games.