A brief survey was carried out in February principally to direct the Executive towards event planning this year, but also to gauge feelings towards a raft of rule change proposals that have been widely discussed over the past year.

 

There were 353 responses, of which 77 per cent were from Europe, with the rest evenly split among other regions. Generally the responses represented a good cross section of the class. A relevance factor was introduced to weight active sailors, and this had very little impact on the results. Around 85 per cent were Masters, which again probably represents the current class demographic. The majority were active and planned to sail a major event in the next 2-3 years.

Results are generally in line with what was expected. The only change favoured was removing flags from sails (63 per cent in favour of deleting rule), while on the question of group format, the same system as the masters, with no final race, was preferred. There has been much discussion about changing the free pumping rules but 57 per cent were in favour of no change.

For the equipment changes, there has already been a fair bit of feedback on this, mostly negative. There was no Executive agenda here so there was no explanation, as we wanted members to think through the implications. The Executive just wanted to gather evidence whether there was strong feeling about any of them.

The results of the survey revealed that was no appetite for any change among those who responded. All received a vote for no change by 55-70 per cent. These have been already discussed and rejected by the TC, by the Masters meeting, by the Executive and now by the Survey. The recommendation seems to be that there should be no further discussion on changes for a while as it is causing uncertainty and damage to confidence in the class. There are no submissions to change anything for the AGM.

The details of the main points can be seen below

Demographics:

1. Continental spread: Europe (77.3%) North America (6.5%), South America (3.4%), Asia (0.3%), Oceania (incl NZL, AUS) (11.3%), Africa (1.1%)

2. Activity: Active internationally (37.7%), Active nationally (35.1%), Moderately Active (15.6%), Slightly active (7.9%), Inactive (3.7%)

3. Age Group: U23 (1.2%), Senior (23-40) (9.7%) Master (40-50) (18.2%), Grand Master (50-60) (28.2%), Grand Grand Master (60-70) (25.5), Legend (70+)(14.2%)

4 Events attended in last 5 years: 1 (17%), 2 (18.1%), 3 (15%), 4 (7.1%), 5 or more (13%), None (29.7%)

5. Take part in a FGC or EC in next 2-3 years: Yes (46.3%), No (27%), Maybe (26.7%)

6. Fitness: Very fit (18.4%), Moderately fit (56.1%), Not as fit as I’d like to be (25.5%)

Event Rules

6. Free pumping: Keep rules the same at 10 knots at senior events with option for 12 at Masters (56.4%), Remove free pumping rule altogether (24.6%), Raise wind limit to 12 knots (15%), Other (4%)

7. Flags on Sails: Keep the current rules in place, so flags would be required for Finn Gold Cup, Silver Cup and Open Europeans (31.2%), Make flags mandatory for all sails (5.7%), Delete the rule (63.2%)

8. Number of Races at FGC/EC: No change (10 fleet races) (58.6%), Reduce series to 7/8 races so there are a few one race days (28.9%), 9 series races plus a final race, which could be a medal race of some description (12.5%)

9. Target Times for races: No change (59.5%), Shorter races, say 60 and 45 mins (35.4%), Longer races, say 90 and 75 mins (5.1%)

10. Courses: No change (58.4%), Old Olympic style courses (triangle, loop, upwind or downwind finish) (13.9%), Change the course at a lower wind limit, say 12/15 knots (4%), Remove rule to allow different courses for variety (23.8%)

11. Method of group formats: Random groups as Masters use Full fleet series and no final/deciding race (48.4%), Gold/Silver/Bronze split after 3 days (30.9%), Groups (random or by rankings, changing each day) for 4 days plus final race(s) on last day so there is a deciding race(s) (20.7%)

Equipment

In summary all proposals except two received no more than 23% approval, Carbon booms was slightly higher at 31%, while wider hiking pads was 35% in favour.