Sailing - Seychelles to host Optimist African Championship |01 August 2019

Young sailors will be in action in the Optimist African Championship from August 25 to September 1

Seychelles will this month host the 2019 Optimist African Championship in the Persévérance area.

Organised by the Seychelles Yachting Association (SYA) with the Seychelles Yacht Club (SYC) and the National Sports Council (NSC) under the authority of the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA), the championship will run from August 25 to September 1.

The opening ceremony will take place on Monday August 26 at 6pm at the Berjaya Beau Vallon Bay

The championship is open to competitors sailing on boats of the Optimist class that fulfill the eligibility requirements.

Competitors have to enter for the championship through their national association member of the International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA) and they shall have been born in 2004 or later.

African members of IODA may enter up to 10 sailors. For the team racing event, each member (country) entering eight to 10 members may enter two teams.

As the host country, Seychelles may enter up to 20 competitors of which there shall be a minimum number of the opposite gender. There Seychelles can enter up top three teams for the team racing event.

So far, Seychelles has eight sailors registered for the event. Angola has the biggest delegation of 10 sailors, South Africa six, Mauritius and Mozambique five each, Reunion four, Tanzania two and Kenya one.

Seychelles Yachting Association (SYA) chairman Alain Alcindor has said that the organising committee has decided to now open the championship to other countries other than Africa.

The Optimist African Championship comprises two championships – the Optimist individual African championship and the Optimist team racing African championship.

The qualifying series for the Optimist individual African championship will take place on the first two days of racing. If five races of the qualifying series have not been completed by the end of the second scheduled racing day, then the qualifying series will continue until the end of the third racing day and so on, until a fifth qualifying race is completed, and then the qualifying series will include all races sailed until the end of that day.

Sailors and spectators should be aware that a qualifying series race will not count until all qualifying series fleets have completed that race. If 5 races are not completed in the qualifying series for all fleets by the end of the programme racing days as described, fleets shall not be divided into gold, silver or bronze.

For the team racing African championship, each event is organised for a maximum of 16 teams from members, represented by at least 4 competitors. Each team shall comprise four or five competitors of which four may sail in each race. Composition of teams is at the discretion of the member country.

If there are more than 16 eligible teams and the host member does not qualify a team, it will replace the last qualified team.