Sea trials are required for the one person dinghy event of the forthcoming Olympics. Valencia in Spain has been selected to be the venue for the same by the World Sailing Association. Here a selection of equipment would be done along with the eligibility determination of the applicants.
The venue of the selection procedures would be Real Club Nautico de Valencia. It would be prepared for the sea trials to be held during the period of 11th to 15th March 2019. About four boats have been selected for shortlisting for tests. These include laser radial and standard sailboat designs submitted by ILCA; D-Zero which belongs to Devoti Sailing and Melges 14 which is by Melges Boat Works Inc.
The member national authorities of World Sailing have been invited to nominate top three members for each category of male and female of the one person dinghy events. The evaluation panel would comprise of certain criteria that the candidates need to comply with. For instance weight range for men needs to be within 75 to 90 kg while that for women should be between 55 to 70 kg. They all need to be over 18 years of age and career highlights need to be provided, especially of having raced and competed in one person dinghy events.
All nominations for the sea trials in this category need to reach to the sailing organization by 11th February 2019. The organization launched the tender process in May 2018 whereby they invited manufacturers and class associations to submit designs of one person dinghy vessels as well as for participants who wish to be selected for this event in the forthcoming Olympics. Once the compliant bids were shortlisted for laser radial, laser standard, and D-Zero vessels, the sites were visited to check with the equipment specification compliance at the manufacturer sites. The equipment needs to be easy for sailing and fit the weight range of the sailors as specified above.