RADIAL WORLDS ENTRY PROCESS FOR NEW ZEALAND SAILORS

You may be aware from the publication of the NOR by ILCA this week that the Men's and Youth Radial worlds are to be allocated entry events.

In the first allocation round NZ has been given a significant number of places for each event; 10 for the Men's Open and 30 for the Youth. This is the guaranteed minimum number of places that NZ will have for each of the events. NZLA has further decided that 4 of the initial Youth places will be reserved for Female Youth and 26 for Male Youth. These places are given to NZLA to allocate and individuals cannot enter without receiving an entry code from NZLA.

In order to secure our allocated places for the events, NZLA must make a binding commitment to ILCA by 7 January 2007 that all allocated places will be paid for. NZLA will hold these allocated places until sailor names are confirmed.

Therefore all NZ sailors wishing to compete in the events must register their interest with NZLA and pay a refundable deposit of $100 to NZLA by 7 January 2008. Please send a cheque to confirm interest and give details of name, date of birth, sail number and category of the event you wish to enter ie.Open Men, Male Youth, Female Youth. Sailors must be financial members of NZLA. The $100 deposit will be refunded to everyone who either takes up an entry place if it is offered or after completion of the allocation process if the sailor is unsuccessful in obtaining a place. Please note that the entry fee for the regattas is 150 pounds sterling, payable to ILCA upon entry.

Following closing of the initial allocation round in early January, NZ is likely to get allocated additional places for each of the events, depending on the number of overseas entries received for each and the maximum entry that will be accepted for each category.

If sufficient places are then available for a category NZLA will issue each sailor who has registered with the required code and then the sailors will be able to complete their entry on the ILCA website.

If sufficient places are not available for all sailors who have registered for a category, the National Laser and Laser Radial Open/Youth Championship in Taupo in January 2008 will be used as the selection regatta. However in accordance with standard NZLA selection policy registered sailors who have special circumstances and are unable to compete at the Radial Nationals may make an application for a special allocation to be considered if they meet all the necessary criteria. Any application of this type must be lodged in writing with NZLA prior to the commencement of the National Championship. Following completion of the selection regatta all NZ sailors who are selected will be issued with the code to enable them to complete their entries.

All of the male open event, all except 6 of the male youth and all the female youth places, will be selected based on the final results of the Laser Radial Open/Youth Championship. The balance of the 6 male youth places will be selected based on the final results of the open Laser Championships in recognition of the male youth sailors who are campaigning for selection as the single handed boys representative in the 2008 NZL Yachting Trust Youth Team. They are therefore required to compete in the standard rig but may wish to compete in the radial worlds.

Please note that NZLA may require any registered sailor to demonstrate to the satisfaction of NZLA that they are sufficiently experienced and competent at Laser sailing to compete in a regatta of this type prior to an allocation code being issued to them.

We apologize for the late notification of this process, which has resulted from ILCA’s need to adopt an allocated entry due to the increasing success of the class. We believe that most NZ sailors wishing to compete in the Radial worlds will be able to do so but that it will require some patience with the allocation and entry process. Anyone requiring clarification of any aspect of the above should contact Nick Page directly at pages4@xtra.co.nz and he will endeavor to assist. If anyone knows of any other sailors interested in the Radial Worlds who may not have received this e mail please forward it to them as we are keen to ensure that everyone interested registers by 7 January 2008.

Best Regards
Sarah