Not very worldly

This week the bay of Portoroz, Slovenia on the Adriatic Coast will be centre stage for the Extreme 40 teams lining up for the inaugural Extreme 40 World Championship (July 13-18). The 40-foot lightweight and super-fast catamarans have been the platform for the professional Extreme Sailing Series circuit in Europe and Asia, where events typically host less than ten boats.

While some exceedingly exciting video has been generated from Extreme 40 events, it comes as a shock that this class would qualify for the International Sailing Federation (ISAF) to approve it to hold a World Championship. The ISAF Regulations (Reg. 18) describe what it takes to host a World Championship, with stipulations to insure that a class is ‘worldly’. The Extreme 40 is not worldly.

Regarding the event, Jerome Pels, Secretary General for ISAF comments, “The Extreme 40 has been granted this World Championship for this year by the (ISAF) Executive Committee, outside of being a class. The way this works out with the numbers is a very big concern, therefore the situation will be reviewed after the Event."

Two time Olympic medalist Mitch Booth (NED), who has been involved in the development of the Extreme 40 reports, “We are now at 19 boats in existence but to be fair, it was only six weeks ago that The Ocean Racing Club decided to have this World Championship, to actually commit and do the event which is a bold move at such short notice. It would have been great if we had more boats here but under the circumstances, six is probably a realistic low number, but a realistic number for the first event at such short notice. I see this as our chance to demonstrate that we can conduct a real good event and call it a World Championship."

With the genie now out of the bottle, it will be notable to see what ISAF does following the inaugural Extreme 40 World Championship, which has attracted six boats from five European countries.

Team Petras France (FRA)
Team IWC Holland (NED)
Team Nokia Hungary (HUN)
Red Bull Extreme Sailing (AUT)
Team Kempinski Great Britain (SLV)
The Ocean Racing Club (SLV)

PHOTO CREDIT: Crt Slavec/Extreme40Worlds2010/THEOCEANRACINGCLUB