World Sailing: Valencia to host One Person Dinghy sea-trials

Valencia, Spain has been selected by World Sailing to host sea-trials for the selection of Equipment of the Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Competition Men's and Women's One Person Dinghy Events.

Real Club Náutico de Valencia will host sailors 11-15 March 2019 who will sail and test the four boats shortlisted during the Re-evaluation procedure. These include:

D-Zero, presented by Devoti Sailing s.r.o.
Laser Standard and Laser Radial sailboat, presented by ILCA
Melges 14, presented by Melges Boat Works Inc., NELO and Mackay Boats Ltd.
RS Aero, presented by RS Sailing.

World Sailing's Member National Authorities are now invited to nominate their top three male and top three female One Person Dinghy Sailors from which the Evaluation Panel will select from.

Criteria for selection includes:
Applicants must be available on the selected dates
Weight range men: 75kg to 90kg
Weight range women: 55kg to 70kg.
Ages over 18
Top level One Person dinghy sailors, providing career highlights

About the Equipment Selection Process

World Sailing launched the tender process in May 2018 which invited Class Associations and Manufacturers to tender for the Men's and Women's One Person Dinghy following World Sailing's Olympic Re-evaluation Policy, detailed in Regulation 23.6 and approved by World Sailing's Council at the 2017 Annual Conference in Mexico.

World Sailing received eight compliant bids and the D-Zero, Laser Standard and Laser Radial, Melges 14 and RS Aero were shortlisted as being those who closely mirror the technical criteria for the event - easy to sail, shared hull dinghy monohull with different rig sizes for male, female and youth sailors.

Following shortlisting, in Phase 2, World Sailing undertook site visits to the manufacturers to confirm the submitted information, after which an improved bid was requested from each of them to address the supply of equipment to major events, the accessibility to the market by new builders and the standardization of equipment amongst different builders.

The Board's Re-evaluation Working Party reviewed the bids and recommended to World Sailing's Board of Directors that World Sailing should proceed to select new equipment with the additional recommendation that the existing equipment (Laser/ILCA) is included as a full option in the process. The recommendation was approved at World Sailing's 2018 Annual Conference.

Following the Sea-trial phase, World Sailing's Council will select the Equipment in 2019.