The 49er executive reviewed the current status of 49er and FX sail supply, our class rules, and our Event rules around the 2022 European Championship. We have one clarification to announce but otherwise no new changes are proposed.
a) Rewording the 49er spinnaker limitation. The current class rule states that spinnakers with serial number smaller than 491816 will be moved to silver fleet if they qualify for gold. That clause will be rewritten to say, any teams competing with spinnakers not made from Dynacote 75 (the new material) will be moved from gold to silver if they qualify for gold. The new spinnakers are most easily identifiable by having a second horizontal seam, where the old ones only had a single horizontal seam.
The reason for this is because there area a few old spinnakers with numbers higher than the limit, and they are mixed into the series of registration numbers, so this updated wording better reflects the original intention of the rule.
b) No other changes have been instigated. So to reiterate the current status. To stay in gold fleet, FX teams must be using the new sails. 49er teams must be using new jibs and new spinnakers, and either new or old mains. If a team has not yet received a new 49er jib or spin, please see the class manager and arrangements will be attempted.
The executive discussed that there are a few teams who may not yet have received sails, but we believe we can help out some of those teams impacted and that will be less impact to the fleet overall than a late rule change.
Finally, just a reminder that the 49er open forum is July 5th at 1900. If one fleet is still racing at the time of the meeting, then we will hold it for one of the fleets and have a second open forum the following evening.
regards,
Ben Remocker for the 49er Class Executive
