I suppose the only disappointing aspect of the whole regatta was the Australian team never had the opportunity to sing our team song. After hours of practice in Hyannis we were all ready to give it to the Poms and the rest of the world on presentation night. For some unknown reason, the Poms never got into singing mode so the moment was lost. There is always next year in France.

The standard of sailing at this regatta was very high. The Americans had a number of young college graduate sailors competing and the UK team had 27 boats. The majority of boats were set up with Proctor style rigs and gybing centreboards. It was quite noticeable the lack of black mainsails around. Most boats had Dacron or Kevlar mains, with a few Aussies using Technora. After looking at the Top Ten Gear List on the North American home page, it was interesting to note that three out of the top four boats used American Ullman mainsails, jibs, and spinnakers. Also all the Americans were using huge windows in their mains and jibs

There were some new design Waterat foils being used by a couple of American boats.

I would describe them as high aspect foils. The centreboards were approximately 100mm narrower than the standard Rat board and 100mm deeper. To get the centre of effort aft again, they had a lug on the forward edge of the board in the case. On this lug there was drilled the pivot point hole, thus when the board was pulled down, it moved aft. Also with the pivot point in front of the board, when it was raised in the case, the head of the board moved forward which allowed the board to fit into the case with its extra length. The rudders were no more than 130mm wide, with an extra 150mm added to their depth. The only complaint I heard was that the boats were hard to steer in very light winds.

There was a dry silicone spray call MAC LUBE being used by a lot of competitors to reduce friction on certain systems. Example - spinnakers, spinnaker shutes, kite halyards, pole launching lines, side of mast where pole launching lines rub, rudders, leading edge of centreboard, etc. I was told never to spray the entire centreboard, because if you capsize you will never be able to get on the board.

The prototype new large spinnaker never made it to Hyannis. Krista Bergstrom who was developing the sail was unable to get to the Worlds, so the showing of the spinnaker never eventuated. The International Body is going to elect a committee to push this project along, so hopefully by the time the Worlds in France are with us we should have something to look at.

Some of the top Americans (the winners) who did not have halyard locks were using a two to one main halyard system. Not quite sure what this does. Maybe a reduction in mast compression? If anyone out there knows the reason for doing this I would appreciate an answer by e-mail so we can let people know.

France 1999

Venue-L'ecole National de Voile a Quiberon

Pre Worlds 1 to 3 July '99

Worlds 5 to 11 July '99

South Africa 2000 confirmed

Venue Port Elizabeth

Portugal 2001 not confirmed

Venue.unknown

Australia 2002 not confirmed

Venue Fremantle W.A

The French Worlds '99 will be an interesting regatta. Once again it will be an open championship, which should draw up to 150 entries. In Hyannis there were 113 starters with the first beat 1.5 miles long and a 4 minute gate. This worked out well, but with a 50% increase in entries we could end up with a 2 mile beat and a 6 minute gate. How good would this be? Please 505 International Body don't ever let our class go "Olympic". It's the best dinghy class in the world.

(DP)