fr 2007.02.01 Nicolas Bessec IMCA France President

Since we met in Horsens , things have changed here. David Balkwill left to UK for his job; hence we elected a new bureau. Nicolas Bessec is the new president, Jean Nivet is the treasurer and Nicolas Marc is the new secretary. We take time to organize the team and set new goals. Now we are on our way.

* We will try to be the most attractive, friendly and serviceable class for its members * We would like to see the number of active members increase form 10 to 25 at the end of the year * We will try to send at least 3 French mothies to the Worlds in Garda (Seb Josse and I have already planned to come !)

We still are around 10 mothies but we have a lot of projects for 2007. 3 to 4 persons who are building their own moth, will be ready to sail for this summer. I think 3 Bladeriders are on the way (1 for Sébastien Josse, 1 in Marseille and 1 in La Rochelle). And more people interested to buy second hand moth. We expect to be around 20 to 25 at the end of the year.

As usual we compete in the Breizhskiff races circuit. We race against other skiffs. We would like to highlight 2 events where we would like to see foreign mothies to come to race with us. Could you please list then on the world class web site homepage? 1. FRANCE OPEN SKIFF . It lasts three days (April 7th, 8th, 9th) with a training session on Friday the 6th. As it is a central position in Europe (in Champagne, between Paris and Strasbourg), it tends to becomes an international event. Last year, almost 50 skiffs were present with sailors from Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland. Amongst them more than 10 moth were present... This year, even more people should come. It seems to be a good opportunity for everybody to come and meet in an unofficial Moth European Championship (as none will be organized this year). Thus the French IMCA is pleased to invite you to join us during this week-end. If there are enough mothies interested in, we can have our own races. Your can book here: http://www.franceopenskiff.fr/en/indexen.php 2. MOTH GRAND MEETING. July 13th, 14th and 15th in Noirmoutier (near Nantes, West coast). All kind of moth will join the event. It will be a great social time and races with old wooden moth VS moth foiler!!! If you are interested please send us an e-mail at bureau@moth.fr

We are currently updating our class web site www.moth.fr. Great job is being done by the bureau and in few weeks it will be full of reliable information. The French moth community lives and exchanges on Breizhskiff Forum. So if you want to say hello or participate in English or with the few words of French learnt at school, just feel free to do so! http://www.breizhskiff.com/forums/index.php

We are organizing training sessions with 3 to 4 boats all along the year. At least 2 mothies will go to UK to race and train. I think Pierre Yves Corre and I will come for Rutland Inland Championships on April 14th and 15th . I think we will stay 3 to 4 days more to train in Weymouth. I will let you know what's going one.

I have done an article for a famous French sailing magazine called Voiles Mag'. In 6 pages, we explain how foils are working, how to manage to sail and talked about the French class. The journalist tries my boat and manages to foil just 15 minutes after she rides! The article she wrote is very enthusiastic. She explains that it's not so difficult to foil at it seems. That's a great help to promote the class in France. Since then, more people came to visit my blog and ask for more information. You can have a look to the article here: http://nicolasbessec.over-blog.com/album-310950.html I did some great pictures with a very good friend. His name is Pierrick Contin, he is a professional photographer (official photographer for Le Défi in America's Cup, Hobbie Cat class, Melges 24 class, etc.) and he's also a very good friend of Thierry Martinez. He is very interested to do more with us and to come in Garda. More great pics to come!

Look forward to seeing you all in Garda.