Assessing factors for Olympic equipment

The Men’s and Women’s One Person Dinghy Sea Trials, intended to help select the equipment for the Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Competition, recruited 11 sailors to review the boats March 11 to 15 in Valencia, Spain.

The nominated sailors have sailed the D-Zero, Laser Standard and Laser Radial, Melges 14, and RS Aero in a range of conditions. Extensive daily sailing sessions where the sailors sail each boat for around an hour has culminated in feedback sessions with the Evaluation Panel at the end of the day.

The Evaluation Panel brings together a wide range of knowledge including members from the re-evaluation working party, World Sailing committees, Board of Directors and World Sailing technical team. The Evaluation Panel consists of the following members:

Dina Kowalyshyn (USA) – Chair of the Evaluation Panel and Equipment Committee Chair
Torben Grael (BRA) – Board Member
Nadine Stegenwalner (GER) – Board Member
Yann Rocherieux (FRA) – Board Member and Athletes’ Commission Chair
Jurgen Cluytmans (BEL) – Equipment Committee member, International Measurers Sub-committee Chair, Equipment Rules of Sailing Sub-committee Chair
Jo Aleh (NZL) – Athletes’ Commission
Stefan Rahm (SWE) – Events Committee member
Rob Holden (RSA) – Training Delivery Manager
Bernard Destrube (FRA) – Medical Commission member
Jaime Navarro and Hendrik Plate – World Sailing Technical Team

At the end of each day the Evaluation Panel received feedback from sailors on items such as athletic suitability, performance, appeal, customization, transportation, standardization of equipment, quality of product and sustainability.

Furthermore, the Evaluation Panel received daily presentations from the manufacturers on universality, quality control, and cost. The task of the Evaluation Panel is to collate the data and information which will form part of a report.

Following the Sea-trial phase, World Sailing’s Council will select the Equipment in 2019.

About the Equipment Selection Process
World Sailing launched the tender process in May 2018 which invited Class Associations and Manufacturers to tender for the Men’s and Women’s One Person Dinghy following World Sailing’s Olympic Re-evaluation Policy, detailed in Regulation 23.6 and approved by World Sailing’s Council at the 2017 Annual Conference in Mexico.

Click here to view the tender document.

World Sailing received eight compliant bids and the D-Zero, Laser Standard and Laser Radial, Melges 14 and RS Aero were shortlisted as being those who closely mirror the technical criteria for the event – easy to sail, shared hull dinghy monohull with different rig sizes for male, female and youth sailors.

Following shortlisting, in Phase 2, World Sailing undertook site visits to the manufacturers to confirm the submitted information, after which an improved bid was requested from each of them to address the supply of equipment to major events, the accessibility to the market by new builders and the standardization of equipment amongst different builders.

The Board’s Re-evaluation Working Party reviewed the bids and recommended to World Sailing’s Board of Directors that World Sailing should proceed to select new equipment with the additional recommendation that the existing equipment (Laser/ILCA) is included as a full option in the process. The recommendation was approved at World Sailing’s 2018 Annual Conference. Click here to view the Re-Evaluation Board recommendation to Council.

Source: World Sailing