Annullato il Bombolino per “coronavirus” ovviamente non
c’è stato l’incontro ma uno scambio di lettere, tra AICD e la neo associazione
"The International 12 Foot Dinghy Class Association", con sede in
Olanda, ma entità diversa e non collegata al Twaalfvoetsjollenclub olandese,
ovvero l’associazione nazionale nostra omologa."
Inizio messaggio inoltrato:
Da: Francesca Lodigiani
Oggetto:
Letter to The International 12 Foot Dinghy Class Association, AICD, D12’Classe France, Twaalfvoetsjollenclub
Data:
23 aprile 2020 13:45:43 CEST
A: adm
Cc:
voorzitter@twaalfvoetsjollenclub.nl, Moneger
, info@12footdinghy.org
Dear
Admiral Hammings,
I hope
you are fine in these difficult Coronavirus times.
Thank
you for your kind letter and for the introduction to your organization.
Be
reassured that the Italian 12’ Dinghy Association does not feel the
International 12 Association as a rival and respects its initiatives.
It is
true however that many of us are disappointed for what is felt as a
disrespectful smear campaign against our boats, based on
incorrect data.
I am
neither a boat-designer, nor a fluid dynamic
expert, but dinghy sailors that have that background have examined the
Towing Test, that is published on your
web site and do not consider neither
valid, nor useful its results,
chiefly because it is based on incorrect assumptions in respect
of our Italian 12’Dinghies.
One
above all: the weight.
Please
note that the first and second Italian 12’ Dinghy, I 1 Pierino and I 2
Lodoletta, have been built by shipyard Depangher in Capodistria, at that time
still Italy. It was the year 1929.
Marquise Emilio Reggio had seen the 12’Dinghies compete, as single class, in the 1928
Amsterdam Olympic Games. He had liked the boat and had bought the
designs from IYRU in the UK in order to have it built.
Both
Pierino and Lodoletta do still exist. Pierino
is now permanently exposed at the Genoa
Galata Museum and we have its original measurement certificate, since
said boat has been with family Reggio until now.
Lodoletta
is still racing and has been recently re-measured. It has also passed the
“lamboley” test, that is mandatory since 2008 on all 12’ Dinghies, and the results have been amazingly similar
to the ones of modern 12’ Dinghies.
The rule
about the minimum weight of our
boats has remained the same since then:
115 kg , inclusive of rudder with tiller and any floorboards; centreboard
excluded. A number that you find in all
official Italian Measurement and Construction Rules that have been
published since 1930
until today by
the Italian Sailing Federation
(at that time Unione Società Veliche Italiane on IYRU letterhead).
When in
the 80ties my predecessor Bariffi, to save the 12’ Dinghy from decline in
Italy, studied with a team of experts the rules for the construction of
GPR and GPR/ Wood 12’ Dinghy, huge
attention was posed to create rules
having wooden 12’Dinghies as benchmark,
with the goal of rendering equivalent
the performance of GPR 12’ Dinghies to
that of wooden 12’Dinghies. This
because in my country, since then, and also after the come back of the
wooden 12’Dingies in the 2000s, we love to race all together in a single
fleet, in real time, reserving special
prices for the first master, the first super-master, the first lady and the
first Classic 12’ Dinghy. In some races we have prices also for the first
veteran and the first vintage Classic 12’ Dinghy. We can also proudly say that last September,
at the Imperia Italian Championship, with Classic 12’ Dinghies being 16 % of
the whole fleet of 76, a Classic 12’Dinghy has been 3rd over all, after
fighting until the last race for the
first position over all.
As
Italian Class we believe in transparency. This is why you can find all
exiting measurement certificates of our
boats on line, on our web site.
During
the 2nd World War, the offices of the Italian Sailing Federation in Genoa were
bombed and many measurement certificates, including the ones regarding
12’ Dinghies of the 30ties, were lost. Luckily some families had kept
their copy at home and on our web site you can find also many certificates from the 1930s and 1940ties . The reported weights
are within said parameter. Pierino,
1929, is 119 kg; Lodoletta, 1929 is 118 kg;
Gimbi, 1943, is 122 kg; Rondine and Nano, 1934, are both kg 124;
IVAN, 1947, is kg 117.
A last
remark. It is true that a couple of old 12’ Dinghies out of our 2400 have been
used as bars or planters, but as Italian
12’Dinghy passionate know, this is an absolute
exception that we take pictures of,
not the rule. Something that, as I am sure you are aware, does unluckily happen in all countries.
Summing
up.
We fully
respect the initiative of your organization.
We
strongly disagree however with the misleading communication your organisation
is disseminating in relation to the 12 ‘Dinghies built in accordance with the
Construction and Measurement rules of AICD-Associazione Italiana Classe Dinghy
12’, operating under the umbrella of the Italian Sailing Federation (once USVI
today FIV, member of World Sailing),
that has jurisdiction and
has approved and enforced said
Construction and Measurement rules.
Construction
rules that do not differ much from the
rules of the national Dutch 12’ Dinghy Association, in particular as
regards the weight of the hull and its connected parts.
The
truth in any case is that boat speed
depends not only from the weight of the hull, but also from a number of other
items among which the type of trimming manoeuvres to optimize the performance of the sail, the shape and
surface of the sail, the antennas, the wave and wind conditions, the number of
the crew members.
In the
light of the above I sincerely hope that you will remove the misleading
material regarding our 12’ Dinghies from your website and that the association
you chair will reserve the respect to AICD, that AICD in turn reserves to your and to all 12’ Dinghy
communities.
Kind
regards, and let’s hope that there will be the opportunity to friendly meet
somewhere in the next future, when we will be at last allowed to play with our
beloved 12’ Dinghies again.
Francesca Lodigiani
Chairman AICD
Il giorno 16/apr/2020, alle ore 11:40, adm <
adm@asb4.com> ha scritto:
Dear secretary,
Please find attached a letter by the
International 12 Association to the AICD
On behalf of the International 12 Association
Bert Hamminga