THE International Sailing Federation (ISAF) ended its annual World Conference at Brighton yesterday with a distinct focus on Olympic issues. The main decision was the selection of classes for Sydney 2000.
As expected, the Julian Bethwaite-designed 49er was unanimously ratified at all stages of selection as the new class for Sydney. The events committee meeting on Thursday produced a set of recommendations that saw the Skiff, Mistral, men's and women's sailboards, Tornado multihull and Europe singlehander endorsed without question by all delegates.
That left the remaining Star keelboat, Laser and Finn singlehanders, 470 men's and women's two-person dinghy and the Soling keelboat as potential candidates, for loss of Olympic status. After several rounds of voting, the committee's decision was to drop the Star to make way for the 49er. This leaves the Soling as the only keel-boat class which will be used for fleet/match racing as seen at Savannah this year.
The Star was first introduced at the 1932 Games and has only been left out once since.
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