Dear All,

Please note that I just received the information that SL16 Open World Cup will be organized this year in La Baule - Bretagne / France from June 21st to June 25th 2006.

The event will be organised by CNBPP (Club Nautique de la Baule, le Pouliguen, Pornichet) and YCLB (Yacht Club La Baule) together with the city of La Baule.

More to come and a flyer has been posted on http://www.h2o-sensations.com

Regards,
Jr

For more info on the Sl16 class and boat go to http://www.slica16.org/

You will find the class rules here and other stuff.

Apparently Performance catamarans (Nacra) will be building the boat in the USA and they have a singapore based builder as well.

AND ! in its very short lifespan yet the class association has already no less then 16 Honorary class Members. Were I come from you actually had to do ALOT of succes class building for say 15 to 25 years to even be considered for honorary membership. How times chance.


Wouter

Wouter,

Thanks for adding information I did not prodived. This is correct (as loong as information do not change), Nacra will build the SL16 in US, Asia and Autralia. We are also using the Nacra Network in EU to resell the SL16.

Now sorry but I do not understand what you by "Were I come from you actually had to do ALOT of succes class building for say 15 to 25 years to even be considered for honorary membership. How times chance."

Would you please, reformulat?

Thanks,
Jr

Jr,
Does the SL 16 already have provisional status with ISAF?

Mary,

Let me investigate and I'll come back to you as soon as I've the information.
Regards,
Jr

I spoke to a friend of mine in Singapore and the one SL 16 that was in Singapore was packed up and sent back to France. So there are no SL 16’s in Asia anymore.

As for the SL 16 being a recognised class, the ISAF Conference rejected them as they didn’t have enough numbers.

I think I can answer the question on the “honorary membership” from Wouter. The first name Olivier Bovyn was the guy in ISAF pushing the SL 16. Some of the other names I recognise as either designer or builders. .

I think the SL16 doesn't have international status YET, but it is awarded exemptions in anticipation of it achieving the numbers needed for official recognition. At least some of the documents are written in that way. Read through the documents like class rules and by law to understand what I mean. Also the fact that the SL 16 may hold a World championship so soon ( in 5 months) after its conception suggests that it has acquired a special position in ISAFs view. Meaning it has defacto recognition even though it doesn't qualify under the rules governing the international classes.

But what else is new. The Hobie 16 + spi made use of the same construtions, this class never had the numbers to qualify for an international class either.




I know who these persons are as well, as some of the the others, that is not what I meant.

Wouter

ISAF has confirmed that provisional status has not been granted to the SL 16 class. I am told that the organizer is being notified by ISAF about Regulation 26.4, which makes it unlikely that the class will be able to call its event a world championship (or anything that implies such).

The ISAF Council does have the power to waive the usual requirements for Recognized or International Class because of the unique purpose of this class as a youth boat. I guess we will see if that happens at the ISAF spring meeting. I'm betting NOT, because I would think ISAF would like to see more of the boats in the market and more widely distributed in the world before they decide whether it is necessary to bend the rules for the class.

On the other hand, maybe the manufacturers will persuade ISAF that in this case the cart has to come before the horse.

Kind of hard to convince people to buy these boats as youth boats if there is no guarantee that the class will ever get ISAF Class status. And they have to achieve that status before it can be actually used as the boat for the ISAF Youth Worlds, even though it has been designated as the alternative multihull equipment along with the Hobie 16 w. spin.

And, as Wouter pointed out, it is even more confusing considering that the Hobie 16 with spin also is not an ISAF International or Recognized Class.

Dear New2Sailing2,

Any idea on the reason behind the return to France for the SL16 that was send to Singapore?

Jr

I would like to congratulate New2Sailin2 on how quickly he/she has integrated into the sport of sailing. Apart from the first two posts, he/she has shown that he/she has built up a very good knowledge of the sport, especially the Hobie and Youth Sailing side of it. Reading his/her previous posts has proved very enlightening. And all since August 04.
The first post is below - I feel like I'm back on the "Old Forum"

New2Sailing2 08/06/04

Gotta call you "Dead-Eye Dermot." I too had this guy pegged as a "potstirrer." Some one we probably know that is choosing to stay anon because he can't get away with slag like this otherwise.

If we were playing cards, I could yell, "Bullsh*t!"

Dear JR,

Sorry I don't know why the SL was sent back to France.


As for Dermot and John, you guys are so far wide of the mark. If you were playing cards John I would own your house by now.


As for the friend in Singapore, I maybe new to sailing but I didn't say I don't have friends or have business interests around the world. If you don't beleive the SL 16 is not in Singapore I suggest you write to either Singapore Sailing or the Singapre Sailing Academy and confirm.

The SL 16 not being a recognised class was confirmed by Mary in her next post. I suppose you are going to include her in the conspircy theory!

As for the honoray members it takes no research to see the members and who they are. Olivier Bovyn is known, Loday is the designer. A quick google serach finds many things.

"Olivier BOVYN (FRA) recommended the unanimous decision of the working party that the Sirena SL16 catamaran designed by Yves LODAY be selected as the youth multihull for the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championship." From the ISAf web site

So to all the "experts" who think they are the only one who know everything and other are too dumb to use the internet or have intrest outside sailing. A lesson don't attack people unless you know the facts or play cards if you are not good at reading people.

Dear new2sailing2,
I am quite sure that your facts are absolutely accurate. You have shown over the past year that you have an extreeeeemely good knowledge of sailing matters

In case there is any question about what I posted, here is the exact e-mail response I got from Simon Forbes at the ISAF Secretariat:


Now, my (Mary here) concern is that nobody knows at this point which of the two boats (Hobie 16 with spinnaker or the SL 16) is going to be used in 2008 and even beyond that.

The youth sailing scene in the United States has been in limbo for the past few years since it was announced that a new multihull youth boat was going to be chosen for the ISAF Youth Worlds. Like, "Should we buy a bunch of spinnaker kits from Hobie Cat Europe for our kids to train with here on the Hobie 16? Or should we wait to see what boat is selected as the youth boat and start building a fleet of those here?"

Meanwhile, the U.S. kids are not getting the spinnaker experience that the kids in Europe have, where there are a number of youth-sized boats with spinnakers.

So maybe we should just forget about what the youth boat is going to be and figure out a way for our youth sailors to get more experience on cats with spinnakers, no matter what brand or size of boat, since it is obvious that whichever boat is used for the Worlds, a spinnaker is going to be used.

OR, we could just say, "Who cares about the ISAF Youth Worlds, since we are only sending one catamaran team?"

OR, we can at least get our kids into monohull spinnaker classes to get them the spinnaker experience, until we have enough youth spinnaker cats in this country.

It would be interesting to know whether Performance Catamarans has plans to build and get at least 20 boats on the water in the U.S. as part of working toward ISAF Recognized status for the SL 16.

The window of opportunity of racing as a "youth" is pretty small, so it would be nice if the political wheels could turn a bit more rapidly for this particular segment of the sport.

Yep,

I'm with Dermot and John W. on this one.

New2sailin2 is all over the (non)-ISAF status of the SL16 in his past posts, totally ignoring the fact that the H16+spi doesn't satisfy the same recognision requirements either. Needless to say he doesn't make a peep about that glaring deficiency !

Accurate about the Singapore SL16 ? Maybe.

Biased in everything else ? Most likely.

Wouter

Personally, I couldn't care less about ISAF status, whether for the Hobie 16 with spin or the SL 16. The only thing I care about is that whatever boat is used is universally available to and economical for the greatest possible numbers of kids in the world.

Isn't that what it's all about?

Have your kids race spinnaker boats like the F18 (or even F16/I-20) of dad, uncle, friend, etc . And do so as much as they can. There is honestly not much point in having them race plain sloops. Spinnaker sailing is just too different. Even monohull spinnaker sailing will be a bit far fetched. Only 49-er, 29-er mono's comes relatively close as they too have asymmetrical spinnakers. Forget about 420's and 470's.

And then when they have won the US slot for ISAF youth championship then have then do a crash course on the US sailing SL16. (That is when US sailing has bought a SL16 for that purpose)

Wouter

I regret that clubs, sailors are waiting for an administration to take the decision to teach, make children learn and practice fun boats.

I regret that we have to wait on a "Something" to start improvements. I agree that HC16 was a great boat but if we wait until an other boat gets as many boats produced as the HC16... we better stop production today.

Hopefully, many manufactures still have idea, project and plan to propose us. I've never been part of a club, regatta fan until I had to eat by selling cats...

Regatta is great, but sailing is even better. Like in Skiing, before Freeriders made movies and proved that ski could be fun... no one would have bet on Skiing for fun as a profession. Today few of the Freeriders can eat of their passion.

What I would like to say is, we need to push clubs is teaching fun, pleasure and then see on individual cases the one that could become "Champions". Spi are so great that any series should allow a "With and Without" in two different class... then the natural choice will be done automatically by the sailors, without "Admin" choice.

jr

One more thing, I regret that someone is able to say that "this is not allowed to call it World championship".

As long as more than two continent are represented and accept racers from all over the world...
As long as a "International advertisment" was done
As long as the class does it on it own

I'm possibly utopist... but I like freedom, in the mind, in the soul and in choices.
Jr

I don't think that is the case. It is the spinnaker factor that seems to be on hold here in the United States, as far as youth multihull sailing is concerned. And it may be holding us back from getting a multihull into our Junior Olympic Festivals.