Dear Sailors, Parents & Coaches,

The 2025 IODA events are coming back to a more standard timing with both Worlds and European Championships taking place in summer. We will therefore revert to a more standard HKODA selection process. While World and European Championships have been confirmed, Asian championship still needs approval from the IODA AGM in December, but are expected to take place in Oman over the Autumn 2025.  

As usual, HKODA will have allocated slots at IODA World (5), European (4) and Asian (10) championships. After a successful start last year, we have requested additional slots for Hong Kong for at least 4 sailors at each of the IODA African, North American and South American championships. While these slots can only be confirmed by IODA at a later stage, we do believe this will create opportunities for more sailors to participate and make the most of these large IODA regattas.

Please check sailor eligibility rules available on the hkoda website. We would like to remind all sailors that to be eligible for selection, sailors have to race with their HKG sail numbers whenever he/she competes at regattas in the Optimist class (unless sails are provided by the OA, or during Team Racing).

Based on the schedule for the IODA events, the selection for IODA 2025 World, European and Asian championships will consist of the following regattas:

Asians 2024 Golden Ticket

After the IODA Asian and Oceanian Championship 2024 (in Hong Kong), ONE ‘golden ticket’ will be awarded to the best placed sailor from Hong Kong (HKG sail #).  The ‘golden ticket’ will give that sailor an automatic place on either the Worlds or the Euros team.  It will be up to the sailor to decide which event to participate in.  The remaining 8 places on the Worlds and Euros teams will be decided based on these selection guidelines.

Notes

1/ As per IODA rules, a sailor cannot participate in both Worlds and Euros. Sailors will therefore have to choose and priority will be given based on rankings.

2/ The 2024 Worlds in Argentina is scheduled very shortly after ABC Southside. There is insufficient time for the Worlds Team to compete at ABC Southside, travel to the regatta site and prepare properly for the Worlds. The Committee has looked at this closely and has decided that it will not be fair to include ABC Southside as one of the Selection Regattas for the 2025 IODA events. It will however still count toward the annual rankings for Sailor of the Year 2024-2025.

3/ In the event that fewer than 10 races are sailed at HKODA Nationals and Hong Kong Race Week combined, the Committee may at its discretion organise a Spring Selection Regatta with a minimum of 6 weeks advance notice. This must be scheduled to be completed by April 13 2025.

4/ For each of the African, North American and South American championships, the ranking to be used will be the same one as for the Asian Championship.

5/ As in previous years the rankings for overall HKODA Sailor of the Year and selection for IODA events will be based on the results of all the individual races in the relevant regattas. For every 4 races 1 result (including DNE scores) can be discarded.

Eg. If a total of 18 races have been completed across the regattas then 4 race results can be discarded. The RSS Low Point System and Appendix 8 will be applied in scoring. Each race is scored separately and an individual race result is counted using scores excluding international sailors.

6/ Each IODA event has its own rules on the number of participants allowed from each Member National Association, and boy/girl ratios, which we will follow when making the selection. These rules are set by IODA and must be taken into consideration when looking at the rankings.

We look forward to seeing you all in Clearwater Bay for the Nationals  - thank you all for your support with these events.

If you have any questions please send an email to secretary@hkoda.org

Warm regards,

HKODA