Asian Sailing Federation launches event circuit

The Asian Sailing Federation (ASAF) has announced the launch of the ASAF CUP and ASAF YOUTH CUP series. The ASAF Cup will be competed in a minimum of the eight Olympic Classes and ASAF Youth Cup which will be competed in Optimist, Laser 4.7 (under 17), Laser Radial (under 19), RS One (under 19) and other optional classes. The series will have annual events as follows for the first 3 years:

ASAF Cup:
Enoshima, Japan – June 19-22, 2014
Shanghai, China – October 23-26, 2014
Mussanah, Oman – March 10-14, 2015

ASAF Youth Cup:
Chennai, India – December 16-22, 2014
Hong Kong – February 14-17, 2015
Singapore – March 17-21, 2015
Abu Dhabi – April 8-11, 2015

The ASAF Events Committee will liaise with event organisers for issuance of Notice of Race for all events by end May 2014. Sailors from around the world are invited to participate in the events, and ASAF is confident that in future these will be one of the best competed events by the best sailors not only from across Asia but also the World.

“This will enable Asian Sailors to compete with each other on regular basis to raise overall standard of sailing in Asia,” said ASAF President Malav Shroff. “This series will also enable new technical officials to be trained and qualified in Asia in the coming years.”

In another significant development, ASAF Executive approved the first partnership for ASAF with Laser Performance during the meeting. This will be an initial 3 year partnership where Laser Performance will support ASAF Administration. The funding will allow ASAF to grow sailing in Asia, and run the organization more efficiently.

“This is a great step forward for ASAF as it will allow us for the first time to fund important administrative activities in Asia to develop sailing,” said Jason Lim, Secretary General of ASAF. “With the start of the ASAF CUP and ASAF YOUTH CUP, this is a very timely help received by us from Laser Performance and we thank them for this.”.

“We believe Asia has a tremendous potential to grow the sport of Sailing,” said Bahman Kia, Director, Laser Performance. “ASAF has been making fast progress in the last one year towards growing the sport of sailing and we are hopeful that the new administration of ASAF will be able to use this funding to grow the sport even further. We in Laser Performance believe that youth sailing is very important for the future of our sport and Laser Performance will continue to support and dedicate its efforts towards it in the future and its partnership with ASAF.”.

Source: ASAF/asiansailing.org