From the Commodore

by Luis Soubié

Hello snipe friends,

Is hard for me to fairly explain in a foreign language how honored I am to be elected as your new Class Commodore for the next 2 years.

It seems like yesterday when on the afternoon of the day of my 15th birthday in 1985 I sailed down with my optimist, to watch the snipe Worlds racing at Buenos Aires. That day, sailing back to the club, the great JPN sailor Miyuki Kai asked me where the club was at the coast. His 20% English and my 10% English were enough, and he was kind enough to offere me to sail his snipe for a while. It was a magic moment for me that I will never forget. It was love at the first tack.

Later, and after 2 years of trying to get me in the 470 or the Europe, my father gave up in 1988 and his present for his 60th birthday, was to buy me a wooden old snipe, my beloved Lineburger 12103.

I did the junior worlds that ́88 at St. Petersburg and destiny wanted me to attend to my first regatta as Commodore , the Id Crook Master Worlds, at the same club 32 years latter.

I never saw myself at the class as anything else but a sailor trying to sail well and have fun, and then I started as NS in ARG in 2011 and at the SCIRA Board in 2014 as Vice Secretary of WH&O, not voting member.

I never thought back then, that I would enjoy any job at the Board, but like many of us, I had for years a wrong understanding of what the Board was. Now I know, after 6 years in it ,that is only a group of great fellow snipe sailors who gives back to the Class the best they have, by volunteering their time (tons of it), and expecting nothing in return.

It was a pleasure for me, with all our agreements and fights, to share opinions and points of view with all this people who I respect so much. And not only the Board, this goes too to all Fleet Captains and National Secretaries. Their commitment is what keeps the Class going decade after decade.

In this moment I want to thank Past Commodore Gweneth Crook, who lead me into the Board, and our new Past Commodore Pietro Fantoni for his endless efforts and hard job this past two years. It will be hard to keep his pace.

In the road we made mistakes (and we will sure do some more), and we allways tried to solve them according to the rules and our best judgment, personal interest always at the side, and not adding additional mistakes to cover the original one. This never ends up with everybody happy, we did the best we could at the time. Every time. We ask for your understanding, collaboration and opinion as member of the Class. We can never know what is best for the Class if we get no feed back from their members.

This being said, we have big challenges ahead. We are now a World Sailing Class since 2018, and our rules changed a bit in order to be WS, and they still need some polish until we can leave them untouched for several years.

Also, our major regattas had some changes, in an effort from the past years Boards to make the events more fun and enjoyable, were people, in addition of the “serious race” part (which we always have thanks to the quality of sailors we have), gets some real and super “serious fun” and they go back home wanting to have some more. We worked a lot on having more social events, a more relaxed schedule, shorter measurements and why not, more beer (for the joy of my crew…)

We have great upcoming major events in USA, Croatia and Japan, and the Board , the NS ́s and the clubs are already working hard to offer you a great experience. I look forward to find many of you attending them. I really enjoy snipe racing but there is nothing I enjoy more than to know new people and getting together with old snipe friends at the bar in this kind of events, so don’t miss your chance to sail them is you have the opportunity.

They will be fun !!!!! Believe me

I hope to meet you all there

Luis Soubié