DECISION ON MELGES 24 WORLDS GETS NEARER - FI BROWN UPDATES US ON TODAY'S DEVELOPMENTS

It's been another frantic day for everyone involved in the Melges 24 Worlds rescheduling which included a 7 way conference call for the IMCA Executive Committee.

Over the past 48 hours a enormous amount of work has gone into looking at both Key West and St Petersburg in detail and in attempting to get the views of as many potential competitors as possible. Our thanks must go to everyone who made contact to offer an opinion or advice and to St Petersburg Yacht Club, Frank McCarthy, Premiere Racing and Peter Craig for their herculean efforts.

As the original aim of the class was to hold a dedicated stand alone regatta the St Petersburg offer was considered very carefully. SPYC's ability to put on the regatta was under no doubt but the question was whether teams would be able to reschedule their plans to actually get there. Unfortunately the combination of Thanks Giving, Christmas, New Year, the need to allow enough time for the Europeans to ship and the need to avoid clashing with existing events made it impossible to find a date which a sensible number of competitors could all make. With regret the Executive unanimously agreed that it would not be possible to accept this offer, however we will look forward to seeing them for the St Petersburg NOOD in mid February and hope to work with them for a major championship in the future.

The majority of competitors who expressed their views said that Key West was their first choice so it was agreed that the IMCA's efforts should now be concentrated on Key West Race Week. Of those competitors who had prefered St Petersburg the key reason was that they had already chartered their boats for Key West or had made arrangements to sail Key West with a non Melges team. We regret that a small number of people will not be able to take part in Key West who'd planned to do the Worlds but it was agreed that we must go with the event which allowed the largest number of competitors to take part.

Premiere's Peter Craig and I have been burning up the phone and internet connections sorting through all sorts of queries and budget issues. As those of you who have previously done Key West will know it is a truly world class regatta with the highest possible standards of race management and support services so many of the facilities we need are already in place.

The key additional areas we are working on are:

* Making suitable provision for championship level registration, measurement and crew weigh-in procedures.

* Providing a 10 race schedule plus practise race (the current Key West Schedule is 8 races) within a format which wont require crews to change any existing travel or accommodation plans.

* Providing on the water judging.

* As it is not possible to provide a totally dedicated race course finding ways to ensure that the other class on the course is compatible and that the timings and course formats minimise fleet overlaps.

* Providing some dedicated Melges 24 social events and ensuring that this Key West really stands out for the Melges 24 comptitors.

* Finding new sponsorship support and ways to minimise the additional cost to the class..

Premiere are pulling out all the stops to accommodate us and we are now very close to reaching agreement with them. A further update will follow tomorrow and we are on target to be able to make a final announcement by early next week.

If you feel there is any way in which you can contribute (jury or press boat loan, helping host or fund a party, paying to have the bow numbers printed, cash sponsorship, etc, etc, etc) please e-mail me - all contributions gratefully appreciated.

Another update will follow tomorrow so watch this space and feel free to post any queries on the discussion forum (that way I can answer them once and everyone can see the information).

Thanks for continuing to bear with us - I'm definitely beginning to get the feeling that your patience will pay of handsomly!
Fi

Further information will follow as soon as possible. Questions, comments? contact Fiona Brown, IMCA Press Officer, E-mail or call Tel +44 7711 718470, Fax +44 1243 372881