Grant Atherton is not only busy submitting articles to Sail World to publicise the nationals and acting as Jessie's shore based crew, he is also the President of the International Mirror Class Association of Australia. Below is his report that was presented at the recent AGM of the National body.
IMCAA PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2009
It has been a generally positive year for the International Mirror Class in Australia. The year started with the very enjoyable Nationals in Sydney at the Balmoral Sailing Club. Numbers were up on the previous couple of years and there was a notable trend from the local Sydney fleet of former sailors getting back into dinghies with their sons or daughters. It was also encouraging to see some very young and lightweight subjuniors demonstrating that the International Mirror is indeed an ideal boat for young sailors.
The Balmoral Nationals were also the first major regatta where a Mark III hull had been seen, and it is pleasing to see that we now have these hulls being manufactured on both sides of the country. We have also seen a steady progression towards the Bermudan Rigs across the various fleets.
The highlight for the year was of course the World Championships in Wales at which Australia was represented by a small but very visible team, and we congratulate all of our sailors on their performances both on the water and the way they conducted themselves. Experience of such an event is a huge learning experience and you will no doubt see members of the team progressing further in their sailing careers. Winding the clock back to the 2001 Worlds in Ireland reveals some familiar names to those that follow sailing – not the least including Tessa Parkinson the 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist crew in the 470 Class, and Torvar Mirsky who recently finished 2nd in the World Match Racing Tour and whom we are likely to see on an America’s Cup campaign in the not too distant future.
The Welsh World’s have taken the coverage of the championships to a new level, with a great web site including mark by mark results for the top 10 or so boats, videos of both action and interviews, and a vast collection of photos. The Welsh Worlds were an opportunity for us to promote the 2011 International Mirror World Championships in Albany WA, and it was a fitting reward for Anthony Galante who has put so much volunteer work into the 2011 Worlds already, to have won the “Win a Mirror Competition”. The Welsh Worlds were also the first “Open” Worlds where the entry numbers were not restricted and sailors didn’t need to qualify for their National teams. While I understand this was an experiment, I would be happy to see this adopted for all future championships, why should we limit the size of our ultimate fleet? If we need to cope with larger numbers, I am sure the organising committees are capable of dealing with this.
Having a Worlds in Australia is a definite benefit for the class with boats being upgraded, new boats being built (following a year where not a single boat was built), and people either moving into the class to experience a Worlds, or postponing their intentions to move out of the class to enjoy competing at the Worlds. While it is great that we have two suppliers of FRP hulls in Australia, it is a concern that there is still no viable supplier of timber kits in Australia. I have had input from others that this needs to be addressed to provide for the still evident DIY home. It may be that IMCA needs to free up the process so that people can build boats off the plan – possibly with increased input from their local measurer (and maybe part of the fees can go to the measurer to offset his input).
We are voting on a new Constitution which will allow us to become an incorporated body as required to maintain our affiliation with Yachting Australia, and I would like to thank Tony Mandle and Celia May for their major efforts to get the new Constitution together with the dual aims of minimising changes to the old constitution while including all the mandatory provisions to allow incorporation in New South Wales.
There seems to have been a slowing down of rule changes proposed, with mainly minor changes possibly in the wind, mostly non performance enhancing. It was disturbing to witness photos of the adjustable rig tension devices used by some boats in Wales, with some crews apparently admitting to adjusting the tension while racing – which is expressly prohibited under the rules. I believe no rule change is required to police this, but I would encourage debate and early advice from the 2011 Worlds Organising Committee so that such issues are clearly communicated to all competing countries.
Yet again I must thank the rest of the committee for their help throughout the year, especially Celia who has again admirably carried out the role of Secretary/Treasurer of IMCAA while also being the International President, but also Matthew Forrest the Vice President who has had a major role in organizing the current Nationals, and Martin Grose and Geoff Wilson for their work on measuring and rules and technical committee roles.
Fair Sailing,
Grant Atherton
PRESIDENT IMCAA
December 2009
