The eagerly awaited votes on the future Olympic sailing disciplines and boats for 2024 and beyond were preceded by intensive discussions at the World Sailing Federation's semi-annual meeting at Chelsea Football Club in London at the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, World Sailing President Kim Andersen asked the Council members to vote. There were several important decisions to be made. But first, the 41 men and women on the Council who were entitled to vote that day had to decide whether they wanted to vote by secret ballot or openly. With 21:20 votes in favour, the delegates ( which are presented here ) in favour of a secret voting process.
While most of the decisions were made quickly and after only a few interjections and comments from Council members, passionate pleas were heard before the decision on the future single-handed discipline for men and women. The majority of them were clearly against the Equipment Committee's proposal, which was drafted following a series of tests and favoured the new AS Aero over the existing Laser.
The members made it clear that the world's most popular Olympic boat class could not simply be replaced by less financially strong countries and that a change of class would even jeopardise sailing in such countries. The Council rejected a postponement of the decision requested by members, as well as the proposal in favour of RS Aero itself. In the third round of voting, all four boat classes reviewed in the test series before Valencia were therefore put to the vote again. The Laser received an overwhelming majority of 35 votes, the RS Aero 5 votes. D-Zero and Melges 14 were unable to win any votes.
The 470 was confirmed as the future two-handed mixed dinghy. However, the proposal to retain the RS:X surfboard did not go through. This is likely to be re-tested, re-considered and re-voted on at the annual meeting of the World Sailing Federation in November. A very clear open letter from two-time Dutch RS:X Olympic champion Dorian van Rijsselberghe, who is calling for a more modern board for his sport, has apparently also contributed to the change of heart, although he himself would still be one of the most promising RS:X candidates and his home country of Holland has the strongest RS:X surfers. Everything now indicates that the windfoilers are coming. The boat for the new mixed offshore discipline is not expected to be decided until 2023.
At the beginning of the half-year meeting, World Sailing's CEO Andy Hunt also reported (and thus confirmed rumours that had been simmering for weeks) that the association had sought a loan for which the upcoming TV revenue for the 2020 Olympic Games had been pledged as collateral.
