Star out and more mixed boats

ISAF Events Committee make their recommendations for the equipment to be used in Rio in 2016

At the ISAF Annual Meeting in Athens, the Events Committee met yesterday to decide upon their recommendations for the equipment to be used at the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016.

Under the Chairmanship of British rep Chris Atkins, the Events Committee is something of an all-star affair including for example HRH Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark but also Sofia Bekatorou, Carolijn Brouwer and the ISAF Olympic Commission's Phil Jones.

It seems that the Events Committee's recommendations will be to ditch the Star but keep the Laser, Laser Radial, 49er and the Finn. They wish to keep the Elliott 6m too for the women. The 470, they recommend, should be unified into a single two person mixed dinghy with spinnaker and doublehanded multihull should be reintroduced on this mixed crew basis too.

The Events Committee are recommending a significant amount of equipment evaluation. Surprisingly the RS:X is in question with a view to looking at either windsurfer or a kiteboard that could be used by both men and women. Similarly they wish to revisit an evaluation of the women's two person dinghy.

Obviously the Events Committee's recommendations are only taken into account when the main debate and voting on this subject takes place at the main ISAF Council this weekend. And even then it is not final until the 2011 ISAF Mid-Year Meeting.