Dear FD-sailors!
Welcome everybody to the New Year 2022. Time is running fast. I wish you all had a nice Christmas time and a good start to the New Year.
Despite all our hopes we still have to cope with the Corona virus. The new Omicron variant is still prescribing our way of life! Different countries have very different strategies concerning the virus and lockdowns. lt looks that Omikron is very infectious but less harmfull. On the long run we all hope that the virus will lay down and only exist like the flew.
For the coming season we wish the best concerning all this and giving all of us the opportunity of much and good sailing and seeing each other again! lt was good to have the Worlds in Spain last year and lets’s look forward to another great Worlds on the Garda Lake in ltaly.
There is good news on boatbuilding: right now Tanja is in Dubai to measure the plug for the new boats to be build there. A good and interesting devlopment.
There is also news on the race format front for the Worlds. The Committee has made the decision to make shorter racing but more heats. This is the wish of the younger sailors for already a long time but also more common in sailing already for quite some time. The exact details will be published soon.
Furthermore we received the question if we will have a celebration of the 70th Anniversary of the Flying Dutchman. In principle the idea is good but it is more common to celebrate a 50th, 75th and 100th anniversary. We also did not celebrate the 60th for example. So the intention is to celebrate the 75 th anniversay in 2027. Maybe some of you are wondering if the building of the first Flying Dutchman in 1951 should be the starting point of counting for an anniversary and not the recognition as a class in 1952? It seems that in 2001 – 2002 there have been long discussions about this. The decision was made to take the year of recognition of the class in 1952. Therefore 2027 would be the year for the 75 th anniversary.
So let’s all put our positive energy together and make 2022 a good sailing season and enjoy our beautiful Flying Dutchman.
See you on the water!
Kind regards
Peter van Koppen
President