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The Busan Cup Women’s International Match Race to be held from October thirtieth to November fourth has finalized their list of skippers for the 2009 grade 1 women’s match race.  The teams are made up of nationals from 10 countries making this a truly international event.  The regatta expects to draw much more attention this year with the inclusion of women’s match racing in the 2012 London Olympics.

World’s Top-ranked Claire Leroy from France will head a list of elite sailors vying for the cup this year.  She returns along with Sally Barkow from the USA who won last year’s inaugural cup by defeating Leroy in the finals 3-0.

Also coming back is Liz Baylis, president of the Women’s International Match Racing Association (WIMRA).  She will also conduct the WIMRA North U Match Racing Clinic which will be held from October twenty-sixth to the twenty-eighth.

Due to the resounding success of the 2008 race, this year’s version was able to attract the best teams in the sport today.  Other confirmed participants in the world ranking top ten include Lucy Macgregor from the GBR, Anne-Claire Le Berre of France, and Lotte Meldgaard Pederson from Denmark.

Representing the Asian region, Japan’s Urara Fujii, the Japan’s reining Match Race champion, and hometown girl Hye-won Park will return after doing well in the 2008 race. 

The race will also include up-and-comers Susanne Ward from Denmark and Annelies Thies of the Netherlands, as well as match racing veteran Martina Kalemo of Finland.  Tylinska Katarzyna of Poland will also return to round out the field of 12 teams.  To find out more about this event, visit the website at www.busanmatch.com

It's international match race time again in Busan.  The dates are from October 31st to November 4th.  The venue is right off Haeundae beach.  There will be plenty to see and do.  Free sailboat rides will be offer all day every day, so make sure you make it at least one of the days.  This is truely a world class event that you don't want to miss.

http://www.busanmatch.com

You can check the wind and weather here:

 http://web.kma.go.kr/eng/wea/wea_02_01.jsp?code1=11H20201

You may want to convert the meters/sec to Knots/sec here:

 http://www.calculateme.com/Speed/MetersperSecond/ToKnots.htm

Membership Open

After months of closing it's doors to new members, BESA will be accepting members again starting July 1st.  Classes will also be available to the general public.

 Membership Closed

 We are temporarily not allowing any new members.  We have had so many new members join over the last couple months, that we definately need to hold off on accepting any new members.  We will also have to hold off on lessons as well.  The main problem we have is a lack of available boats.  We will definately get 2 new boats in June, and hope to get 5 or 6 additional boats by July.  Once we have more boats, or as members leave, we will re-open membership.  While I can't give a definate date at this time, I hope to start accepting members again around July 1st.  Hopefully, we can also start up classes again at that time. 

Lessons

Many of you have already seen the changes I’ve made to the lessons.  Last year, I talked the Busan Yachting Federation about the ISSA certification.  They had no problems with us using their certification.  However, this year, the head of the sailing school, is giving me problems with not only the ISSA log book, but also about using their boats.  Now I could make an issue about it by going over his head to the vice presidents and directors, whom many are friends of mine, but I’ve decided it’s not important enough to cause a stir over.

Instead, I’m going to make our own log book.  It will be just as effective as the ISSA log book when it comes to chartering boats in the future.  Basically, charter companies are businesses and they need customer.  They do, however, need to be assured that you can take out their expensive property and bring it back safely.  They normally do this by requiring a certificate or logbook.  Even though you show these items, they will still test you by seeing how you set up the boat and they may even watch you handle it with an observer on board.  Sometimes they charge a small fee to observe you.  So the most important thing is that you can sail.  Having all the fancy certificates that cost hundreds and thousands of dollars means nothing if you can skipper a boat properly.

When I originally set up the classes, I made them so it would go with the ISSA log book.  However, I think the system I have in place makes more sense, both for effective learning as well as availability of boats.

So if you’ve completed Basic Dinghy, and I think you’re ready, you can move on to Dinghy Master.  If you haven’t completed Basic Dinghy, you will finish up Dinghy Basic.  If you have any further questions, contact me.

May Schedule

You may have also noticed that May is for members only.  We had almost 20 new members join in a matter of less than a month.  That’s about the same number as we had all of last year.  So in order to maintain quality in the club, May has been closed off to members only.  I’ve stopped advertising as well, so hopefully demand slows a bit.  If we sign just a few more members, I will have to probably take additional steps to close off the monthly membership and only allow annual.  The current monthly members will be allowed to continue their monthly payments.

Mark is looking for crew to enter the Korea Match Cup Qualifier.  If you are interested and can make time to race from May 12th to the 16th in GyeongGi-Do, please contact Mark at:

 markchi@busansailing.com or call 010-2858-9470

The will be two major races held in Busan.  The annual Busan Cup will be held May 2nd.  The regatta venue will be just off Haeundae Beach.  Many of the top sailors from all over Korea will compete in IRC and dinghy class boats. 

Teh Arirang Cup will start in Gwangali Bay on May 3rd.  This is an annual challenge between Korean and Japanese boats.  Last year a korean boat, Snark, won the event; the first time ever for a Korean boat to win this event.  The starting line for the race is Gwangan Bridge and the race finishes in Fukouka, Japan.

BESA kicked off a new season in style with the 'Welcome Back BBQ' attended by over 70 people.  Under beautiful skies, members and guests of the Busan Expat Sailing Club enjoyed some great food in the neat surroundings of the Marina.  BESA kicks off another sailing season after starting up for the first time in July of 2008.  This is just the start of a series of barbecues and parties which the club will host.  Pictures of this event will be posted on this website as well as the Facebook site soon.

In order to finally offer keelboat lessons, BESA will be opening weekeday morning lessons in April.  The classes will likely start at 9:00 AM and end at 11:30 to 12:00 PM.  Dinghy classes will also be offered.  The cost of all weekend classes will be considerably discounted.   See under LESSONS for more details.