The International 470 Class Association is strongly committed to help the 470 sailors around the world in competing at the 2008 World Championships, to be sailed in Melbourne, Australia in January 2008, and to cooperate with their National 470 Class Associations and National Sailing Authorities. This event will be the last qualification regatta of the nations for the 2008 Olympic Games. In order to help the 470 sailors from the countries where Olympic sailing is less active and support them to take part in the qualification regattas, the International 470 Class Association has decided to set up a specific grant (the 2008 Olympic Pathway Solidarity Grant, “2008 OPSG”). The first part of the 2008 OPSG consisted of providing to the admitted sailors the chance to rent for free up to 6 (six) chartered 470s from Nautivela (www.nautivela.com) for the 2007 World Championships in Cascais, associated with a training camp and coaching assistance thanks to the support of Dolphin Maritime (www.dolphin-maritime.nl) which has provided the ribs.

The second part of the grant provides financial support for teams for their boat shipping or chartering fee for participation at the 2008 World Championships. The 470 Internationale has allocated 10.000 € among teams from Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Belgium, Hungary and Hong Kong taking part in the support programme.

Through this program we wish to help those sailors who have financial difficulties in realizing their olympic campaigns. At the selection of the beneficiaries of the program we were also looking at factors such as 470 sailing in the participant’s country. We believe that if we can give a “kick off support” to countries such as Hong Kong or Chile, they can initiate further development of 470 sailing in their country.

All in all the target is to develop sailing worldwide and help our 470 sailors to be part of the 470 internationle scene.