A two day meeting of the ISAF Council followed by the Annual General Meeting drew the 2015 Annual Conference to a close in Sanya, China at the weekend.
More than 500 delegates met on the Chinese island of Hainan from 7 - 14 November to make the decisions that will shape the future of sailing into the new year. The meeting of ISAF Council, the final decision making body of ISAF, voted on the recommendations made by the ISAF committees throughout the week.
ISAF President Carlo Croce delivered his report to ISAF Council on 13 November touching on the spirit within the current ISAF Executive Committee as well as the goals of the federation. The report is available to view on the ISAF website here www.sailing.org/news/41430.php
Three new members were welcomed into ISAF. The Nicaragua Federation of Sailing and St Vincent and the Grenadines Sailing Association were welcomed as full members of ISAF with the Anguilla Sailing Association becoming an associate member.
The Montserrat Yachting Association resigned as an ISAF associate member.
The Match Racing Committee was reformed into a Sub-committee that will report into the Events Committee. The Youth Worlds Sub-committee were changed to the Youth Events Sub-committee.
The Windsurfing and Kiteboarding Committee and the Empirical Handicap Sub-committee were discontinued.
The Regional Games and Development & Youth Committee were combined into a single Development and Regions Committee with a Regional Games Sub-committee created. The ISAF Sail Rankings and Match Racing Rankings Sub-committees were changed into Working Parties.
Finally, the Disabled Sailing Committee's name change to the Para World Sailing Committee was approved.
The Nacra 15 was selected as the ISAF Youth Sailing World Championships multihull for the 2016 event and onwards. It was also confirmed that the five events for the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games will be the Boy's and Girl's Windsurfing, Boy's and Girl's Kiteboarding and a Mixed Multihull event. The Techno 293+ was confirmed as the windsurfing equipment and the Nacra 15 for the Mixed Multihull. The Kiteboarding equipment is to be confirmed.
Class applications came from Kiteboards, Dinghies, Foiling Catamarans and Around the World Race yachts. The RS Aero, Far East 28R, Volvo 65, IKA Twin Tip Freestyle, IKA Kite Foil and Nacra F20 Carbon were approved by ISAF Council and will now be subject to signing a contract. The M32 Class application was deferred to the 2016 Mid-Year Meeting.
The next ISAF meeting will be the Mid-Year Meeting in Milan, Italy next May with the 2016 Annual Conference taking place in a European destination to be confirmed from 5 - 13 November 2016.
