MELGES 24 KEVLAR SAILS UPDATE

An unusually large number of people have been contacting me asking for an update on the proposed rule changes to allow Kevlar sails, so to keep everyone in the picture here is a quick update.

The IMCA World Council AGM held in September received a proposal to allow Kevlar sails and after discussion the meeting voted to allow this change. The necessary rule changes have been submitted to ISAF for consideration at their committee meetings in Barcelona which start this weekend. ISAF will review the requested rule changes and either ratify them as submitted; request a revised wording(if they feel they do not comply with existing measurement or rule requirements for instance); or refuse the rule changes completely and send them back to the IMCA for further consideration. In reality it is extremely unlikely that ISAF will refuse the changes completely, however, they often request revisions to the wording and so until we have a ratified version we are unable to publish details of this or any of the other changes currently under consideration.

It usually takes a couple of weeks following the ISAF meetings for us to receive formal confirmation of everything and so we anticipate being able to publish details of the new rules towards the end of November. All new rules will come into force on 1 March 2004.

I hope the above helps clarify the situation and procedures that we must follow and rest assured as soon as I have the ratified rule changes they will all be posted on the site.