It is not just the actual words "World" and "International" that ISAF controls. They do not allow use of any other word or combination of words that would lead reasonable people to believe that an event is a world or international championship.

If a class is formerly an ISAF international class and then allows that membership to lapse (either through no longer fulfilling the requirements or by not paying their dues), they can no longer call themselves an international class and they cannot hold world championships or international events. One example is the C-Class catamarans.

Your Formula 14 Class absolutely cannot call itself the International Formula 14 Catamaran Association. If ISAF finds out about it, they will notify the Australian Yachting Association to tell you to remove the word "International" from the name.

The International Wave Class Association was duly incorporated as a non-profit association, but we were told we have to remove "International" from the name, even though it is a logical adjective, considering the fact that there are Waves on the beaches of countries all over the world.

We are not going to change the name, of course, and I suppose the only recourse ISAF has is to require US Sailing to drop the association as a member of US Sailing. It hasn't happened yet, but I guess I'm tempting fate by publicly posting this.

Can ISAF prevent any class from holding a world championship if it wants to? Of course not. What they CAN do is prevent people from coming to your event by threatening suspension of the racing privileges of everybody who participates. On the international level, this refers to the Olympics, the Pan-American Games, and any ISAF international championships. The national governing bodies of the countries of the sailors that participate can also impose suspensions of rights to sail in national events (e.g. US Sailing Championships).

ISAF and its national affiliates take very seriously their responsibility to protect the integrity and credibility of world championships. They don't want "maverick" classes putting on half-assed worlds, because apparently they think this is going to reflect badly on the sport that they govern.

So why can't they just figure out a way to designate which are the REAL world championships and which are the maverick ones, so ISAF doesn't get blamed for shoddy race committee work?

Many classes have no interest and no reason to want to become an ISAF international class. Does ISAF then have the right to use threats and blackmail to prevent them from building their class in whatever half-assed way they want to do it?

All I know is that ISAF claims to govern sailing in all its forms throughout the world.

P.S. So far they don't seem to have gotten control of the iceboaters and landsailors -- they can hold all the world championships they want.

P.P.S. They also no longer have any control over me personally, because I am too old to care about sailing in any of the ISAF or USSA events. I can go to a Wave Worlds and thumb my nose at ISAF, because they can't do a thing to punish me. Unfortunately, that is not true of some of our younger friends who cannot attend because they still want to be able to sail in other ISAF and US Sailing events.

None of the people who attended the last Wave Worlds got suspended, but we are going to do another one. Maybe it will have to be seniors only, as far as people going from the United States.