IODA World Sailing Championship 2007

Lara Granier, Oliver Jones and Gabriel Jones have participated in the IODA World Sailing Championship 2007 from 22 of July to 2 of August 2007.

The IODA World Sailing Championship was held from 22nd of July to 2nd of August 2007 at Cagliari, Italy. 56 countries were represented worldwide, among them South Africa and Kenya representing the African Continent. Representing the Kenyan team were Lara Granier, Oliver Jones and Gabriel Jones.

It was a competition of first’s as New Zealand clinched the Optimist World Championships for individual results while the Greek team won the World Team Racing Championship for the first time too. Of the 13 races five have been in light winds and the remainder in stronger stuff, including one race where 32 knots were recorded. This regatta has been one of the best tests of all-round skills in a long time.

The Kenyan team unfortunately did not finish a couple of the races due to the strong winds but we wish them even better luck as they take on the World in 2008 in Cesme, Turkey.

Result (view full result)

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On Wednesday 1 of August, we had 2 races, the wind was light (8 to 12 knots) so Lara, Gabriel and Oliver finished the 2 races.

On Tuesday 31 of July, we had 4 races, only Oliver Jones managed to finish two of the 4 races. Lara and Gabriel managed to start all the races but they did not manage to finish as the wind was too strong for them. But they managed to do more than 70% of some of the races. On the first two races we had 15 to 20 knots then more than 25 knots on the last two races.

Monday 30 of July: Oliver Jones was quoted on the IODA website as follows:"While the hot-shots revelled in the conditions, at the other end of the fleet there were relatively few who were unable to cope (note that the score-sheets do not distinguish between DNF and DNC). While maybe the Kenyans do not have the experience to compete at this level Oliver Jones is to be congratulated in actually finishing one of the races in today's winds." (http://www.optiworld.org/ioda-news.html)

On Monday 30 of July, we had 2 races, only Oliver Jones managed to finish the first race, congratulation to him. It was too windy for Lara Granier and Gabriel Jones, they tried their best and went to the start line but they could not do the race so I told them to go back on shore. On the first race we had 15 to 20 knots then more than 25 knots on the second race. The race committee cancelled the other 2 races of the day as the wind went up to more than 30knots.

Sunday 29 of July: Rest day, we went to visit an archaeological site and swim in a crowdie beach with the South African Team.

Opening Ceremony on Monday 23nd of July

Coach Boat donated by Team New Zealand

Team NewZealand has offered to Kenya the use of their coach Boat for the full event.
This is a great help for me to assist our young sailors on water. On Behalf on Kenya I would like to thanks again the team of NewZealand.

NEW RECORD ENTRY FOR THE WORLDS - Wednesday 25th of July

An entry of 256 sailors for the IODA World Championship is reported by Hosts, The Y.C. Cagliari in Sardinia. 56 countries will be represented by up to five sailors per country.

The year 2000 when celebrating the millennium, IODA sponsored entries and charters for over 20 countries and 252 sailors from 59 countries who participated. Since then the IODA continental championships (see below) has grown in popularity and a further 13 countries have been elected to attend. Only those giving total attendance of IODA events in July of 69 countries. (+ four more at the IOC African Games).
Since only 50 sailors will take part in more than one of these events, that means that a total of 701 sailors will have represented 69 countries at IODA events during the month.

Standards have risen worldwide in the seven years since the millennium.
In the 1990's only Argentina regularly competed with the Europeans for the top of the fleet: only two of the 30 medals went elsewhere. In the six years since, 50% of the medals have gone to other countries: China, Singapore, Trinidad, New Zealand, Bermuda, Ecuador and Malaysia.

Some countries such as the Dominican Republic, Netherlands Antilles and Kenya did not even have
optimists seven years ago, and other countries that did not participate then include Australia which currently has one of the fastest growing optimist fleets, Russia and Ukraine.

All of this makes predictions of names to watch very difficult. Defending champion Julian Autenrieth (GER) is present but only four sailors in 45 years have ever retained their titles. Others from the top ten "last year" include a trio of South Americans, Stephanie Zimmermann (PER), Jonathan Martinetti (ECU) and Benjamin Grez (CHI).

This year none of them has been able to beat South and North American champion Raúl Ríos of Puerto Rico. The Asian challenge may be led by Singapore with Russell Kan and Rachel Lee. Navee Thamsoontorn (THA) could perform well.

With the 2006 World championships dominated by non-Europeans there is less indication of the strongest European sailors. Fanis Kavvas (GRE) and Jes Lyhne Bonde (DEN) are both former European champions and Jes placed 2nd in Garda at Easter. Phil Sparks (GBR) won the Magic Marine during Easter. There have been some good results from several Scandinavian sailors.

But in the Optimist Class anything is possible and a fascinating championship is a prospect.

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