Notes from International Judge Paul Pascoe ( a man of many talents)
Each year RBYC hosts Sail Melbourne in conjunction with Australian Sailing and other clubs from around the bay. The event not only provides top level competition for sailors, but it also provides officials with the ability to gain experience towards World Sailing recognised qualifications. To become an International Race Officer or Judge, World Sailing requires that a candidate officiates at a number of significant international events, with Sail Melbourne being classified as a Grade 1 event by World Sailing.
Last week World Sailing announced that James Sly from SYC attained his International Race Officer qualification with one of his qualifying events being last year’s Sail Melbourne. In the same announcement, a judge from Sydney, Erica Kirby, was awarded her International Judge qualification, with her final event being last year’s Sail Melbourne. Ed Vincent from Darwin was also awarded his International Judge qualification with his initial appointment as a National Judge coming from his involvement in Sail Melbourne in previous years. Last year an up and coming Race Officer from South Australia was part of the team at Sail Melbourne and hopefully provides her with additional experience for her to apply to World Sailing in the not too distant future. Also this year will be an aspiring judge from Queensland with an eye to becoming an International Judge. And it is not just Australian’s who benefit – Will Zhou from China used his participation in last year’s Sail Melbourne as his final event to allow him to become an International Judge in last week’s announcements.
To continue Australia’s reputation of providing top quality racing we need to continually foster new internationally recognised race officials, and Sail Melbourne provides not only top quality racing for sailors, but also the opportunity for officials from Australia and around the world to work with current World Sailing officials and gain the necessary experience to continue this tradition of top level race management.