IMCA Presidents Report February 2002

Firstly let me apologise for taking this long to write a report for IMCA, I have in my normal day job, been managing a little race called the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race which for obvious reasons has taken some of my time since sailing at the Choshi Worlds.

Back to the important issues, Moths!

Over the past few months Rohan has been working hard to get the finances of IMCA in order, which have been steadily going down in recent years. Thank you to those national associations who have responded quickly as we are now in a position to pay our class fees to ISAF and thus remain an 'International Class', a position I'm sure all of you wish to keep. To Rohan I think we all owe our thanks for getting things sorted in such an efficient manner.

My thanks also go to IMCA Japan for organizing the best worlds I have been to in any class. I'm sure all who attend will agree that it was well worth the trip to the land of the rising sun. For those who didn't bother (read: the Brits) all I can say is you missed great sailing and an unbelievable social calendar.

In recent months here in Australia we have seen reigning World Champ, Mark Thorpe, win his 5th Australian Championship, but this time his long awaiting brother Les, in a new Hungry Tiger, was close on his heels with only bad weather thwarting Les's chance of beating Mark on the last day. On the social/economic front, our entrepreneurial Steve Donavan (aka dono-san), ably assisted by the ex world president Oliver (aka el guapo), have created a new range of accessories for the fashion conscious moth sailor. In the near future IMCA World will be issuing manufacturing licenses to Dono-san Industries for these must-have items. Read Dono-san's Nationals report on the Australian Site for what will prove to be a massive advancement to the Moth Class!

In other areas of the planet new blood is appearing in our class, which is encouraging for the future of the class. I urge every one of you to keep up the work of encouraging new blood be it by lending your boat for a test sail or helping a new moth owner with their setup. In Australia, I am encouraging some of our regattas to be held in more high profile areas so our class is seen rather than some of the usual out of the way places. This is a tactic which will work anywhere so if you are normally used to sailing around a lake with only moths try going to a larger inter-class regatta to spread the word and provide the visuals about moth sailing.

Looking to the future, from all accounts the venue for our next worlds, France in May 2003, we can look forward to another great World Championship for our class. Hopefully, using the tactic mentioned above, we will attract some of the great dinghy sailors France has to offer into our class, once they realise it's no fun bashing around in a Europe or 470 compared to a Moth.

Mark Robinson
IMCA President