APRIL 2006 - Finn

Photo: (c) Dan Nerney/RolexOpening shot: Jonas Hoegh Christensen and Dan Slater in MiamiPresident’s LetterDear Friends,Dear Finn sailors around the world,Considering the manifold projects currentlyrun by the IFA, our Executive Director,Corinne Roland-McKenzie and myself havedecided to use this president’s letter forbriefing you on the various issues the classis facing in the near future. Parts of thisoverview of IFA activities have already beencommunicated to national class secretaries,however, we felt that the wider Finn sailing community should alsohave a chance to learn about the projects forming the centre of ourwork over the forthcoming months.As you may already be aware of, the IFA Executive and some otherFinn sailors and coaches decided last September to summarise thepolicies, tasks and projects the Finn Class regards as priorities in thelonger term. This group has spent a considerable amount of time andeffort sharing ideas on the class future. The outcome is the conceptionof the 2008 Finn Strategic Plan. This plan has been published onwww.finnclass.org and is encompassing all the areas of IFA and setsgoals and priorities for the short and the long term. You are all morethan welcome to comment on it and come back to us with constructivefeedback and ideas.One of our major issues for the near future is a program VPDevelopment, Michele Marchesini has ‘given birth’ to last month, andwhich is already collecting material to be allocated at a later date.The Finn International Development Support (FIDeS) is a programmeaimed to help developing countries in the Finn class or new sailorswith no support, who have the objective to sail competitively. We haveapproached many people including ex-Finn sailors and builders andmany of them have committed to help with donations of new or secondhand equipment as well as discounted products. Michele has writtena document named Guidelines and Rules of FIDeS and we hope tomake it work rapidly to help more countries and sailors to join thelocal and international Finn families. We hope that you can pass theword around and help us promote this programme.Robert Deaves has taken control of the Finn website and loaded itwith a whole lot of new information. Both the Strategic Plan and theFIDeS programme are available to download directly there. There isa new Forum especially conceived for regatta organisers. You andyour federations can place here information and links also for localFinn championships and regattas.In the latest news section you will also find a link to the 2006 FGC inSplit/Croatia. The dates are from the 8th to 16th of July 2006. Assome of you know, this regatta will be used (along with the 2005 FGC)as qualification for the 2007 ISAF combined Worlds (qualifying 75%of nations for the Olympics). Because of the restriction to 80 boatsin the 2007 FGC and the anticipated desire to most countries to qualifya maximum number of representatives for Cascais, we have decidedto increase the number of entries for 2006. The first step will be toallow a representative of the National Finn Association appointed bythe secretary (when the Secretary is unable to come) to race; the onlycondition to this is that this person dully represents his country andvotes at the AGM (9th of July). The second step is to apply for extraplaces (by sending an email to 106453.577@compuserve.com beforethe end of April).[Continues on page 5]FINNFARE APRIL 2006 3