January 12th, 2016 - IM24CA - After the retirement of Hank Stuart, the current Championship Coordinator of the International Melges 24 Class Association, it was discussed and decided by IM24CA to divide the job of the Championship Coordinator between two persons covering different hemispheres. The new Championship Coordinators will be John Abel from Victoria, BC, Canada for Western Hemisphere and Asia Pacific; and Benedek Fluck from Budapest, Hungary for Europe.

John Abel

John is a very experienced and highly respected race officer both in Canada and US. He is a Race Management Master Course Conductor, Club Judge and has a significant amount of event management experience including, Canadian regional and national championships and an ISAF grade 2 match racing event. In his listed experience he has also acted as technical delegate on behalf of Sail Canada for their western regional championship and national youth championship. Previously he has served on the board of Sail Canada, and is currently sitting on the Canadian national Race Management sub-committee. Last November John was appointed by the World Sailing (ISAF) with the status of the International Race Officer (IRO). For 2016 he has been appointed to be the PRO of the Melges 24 Madness Regatta in Miami in March; for the first event of the 2016 Melges 24 North American Tour - Melges 24 Canadian Nationals in Kelowna Yacht Club on June 24-26; and during the Miami Worlds John will act as the IM24CA Championship Coordinator supporting PRO Anderson Reggio.

Benedek has been an active race officer for 15 years now in different classes, starting with local regattas for youth classes and ending up with major international classes like the Melges 24, Laser 4.7 and Finn. Besides being certified as International Race Officer since 2014, he is a certified national juror and an active and successful helmsman in the International Pirat class. He is the chairman of the Race Management Committee of Hungarian Yachting Association, Head of the Hungarian Sailing Club (Vízügyi Sport Club) working on the renewal of Race Officer’s training and qualification system. Benedek holds a Master Degree in Human Resources and has an advanced level Sailing Coach Degree. With Melges 24 class he has had experience since 2013 when he was the Race Officer at the pre-Europeans and after this event PRO at several Melges 24 regattas and Hungarian Championships.

After all those years Hank Stuart will leave behind huge boots that are not so easy to fill. However, the class is looking forward to see Hank at race courses as a PRO though. Looking at the future, IM24CA new Championship Coordinators will meet their first challenges at the 2016 Melges 24 title championships. The Melges Europeans return to Hyeres, France in September - one of the best spots to sail in Europe, where the fleet has enjoyed fantastic sailing at the 2006 Worlds and 2009 Europeans. Another best sailing spot in Western Hemisphere - Miami will expect around 100 teams for the Melges 24 Worlds to sail in the ocean waves in the end of November and in the beginning of December.

Both Melges 24 sailors and the IM24CA are extremely grateful to Hank for the huge job he has done during all those years and looking forward to work with the new guys on board to support the Melges 24 class to be the best one design sportsboat class in the world.