A message from the President.

May I take this opportunity remind you and your Club members that the next World Championships in Berlin, Germany are only a few months away!

Our colleagues in Germany are frantically completing their arrangements to ensure that everything will run smoothly for us. If you are coming to the World Championships and have not already done so, please make sure you register with them immediately – it will make their work so much easier and help them make your visit more enjoyable. You can register on line at  www.hovercraftracing.net

I am sure that the experience of the World Hovercraft Championships in Berlin, will be quite outstanding and something to be remembered. It will be great to all get together again in September and I look forward to seeing you once more.

Kind regards,

Tony Drake JP. President of the World Hovercraft Federation

We welcome Denmark as member

We are very pleased to extend a warm welcome to Denmark who has recently joined the World Hovercraft Federation. Their contact details are:

Name                                                       Hovercraftclub of Denmark

Contact person                 Uffe Andersen

Address                             Nordre Frihavnsgade 91 sttv.

2100 Copenhagen

Denmark

Email                                                       uffeandersen@hovercraftclub.dk

Website                             www.hovercraftclub.dk

World Hovercraft Championships, 2004

Arrangements are almost complete for the forthcoming Championships at Berlin, Germany. The latest round of the European Hovercraft Federation race meeting were held there recently to finally test out minor modification to the racing circuit. Everyone agreed that it is superb offering fast sections, plenty of opportunities for overtaking, technically difficult sections, “spectacular” sections each designed with safety in mind. I have to say it all looks fantastic. Please take the time to have a look at their official website for the event, it can be found at www.hovercraftracing.net

If you are planning to be there, make sure you register and pay before 31^st July 2004.

World Hovercraft Championships, 2006

Unfortunately, the Japanese delegation headed by Mitsuo Yamashita has just informed us that they are now unable to put forward their expect bid to hold the 2006 Championships in their country. We are grateful to our WHF Technical Director, Bob Rennick who has been working with the Japanese group to assemble their bid, which is sadly not now to be. However the news is not all bad, as we have been advised that there are two bids in the offing one from Australia and the other from France. These together with any others that come forward will be discussed and hopefully a decision will be made at our next Board and delegate meeting on Monday following the World Championships in Berlin. If you intend to make a bid to hold the World Championships in 2006 it would be useful if you would give us an early indication.

World Hovercraft Award of Excellence.

Each year the World Hovercraft Federation, if appropriate, makes an award to recognise ‘excellence’ in the area of hovercraft both past and present. Past recipients include Sir Christopher Cockerall, Dr Bertelsen, and Mr John Gifford. We are now seeking nominations for 2004. Please submit your nominations to our secretary, with brief reasons why you consider they should receive our prestigious award, within the next 28 days so that nominations can be circulated for voting. 

World Federation Board / Delegate meeting

The next WHF Board / Delegate meeting will be held on Monday 6th September 2004 in Berlin, Germany. This is the Monday immediately following the World Championships. Now is the time for you to consult with your own country or club members to see what issues they would like you to raise at this meeting. Please advise our secretary of any items you wish to discuss at the meeting, together with a brief discussion paper that can be circulated well before hand. In addition a formal request for agenda items and notice for the meeting will be sent to you in the normal way

Junior Teams

Now a decision has been made, I would like to give you a few statements that I received.

“We have to encourage juniors as much as we can.”  “We need young people.” “Try it at the WHC. We should have brought this up a long time ago, so that other countries could have participated in this trial if they had wished so. It does promote the younger enthusiasts to participate.” “There is absolutely no reason to stop Juniors from participating in the championships. Good luck to our future hoverflyers.” “It is a good incentive for the Next Generation.”

We will discuss this trial at our next WHF meeting.

Rules concerning Junior Teams

Team racing will be permitted for Formula Junior and only Formula Junior at the forthcoming World Championships in Berlin, Germany. (This is an experiment to encourage as many of our young drivers for the future to take part in our sport at the highest level).

Junior Teams must be genuine schools, college or youth groups.

Junior Teams may have a maximum of 4 drivers.

Junior Drivers cannot be in more than one team or if they choose to be in a Team cannot race as an individual.

Teams must register the names of all Drivers when initially registering to part in the World Championship.

Teams must inform the organizers prior to any race or practice who the Driver will be. (This is to ensure that the organizers know at any time,  for health and safety reasons etc., who is actually participating).

As time trials will determine the first grid position the Team Driver with lowest time will start the first race.

Competition and Construction Regulations.

Some minor changes have been made to our Competition and Construction Regulations. The latest versions are now available on our web site for download. Please make sure you have a copy of each for the World Championships in Berlin, Germany.

Proposal from Bob Rennick to change the voting regulations

I’d like to propose a drastic change to the WHF Constitution. Essentially, I’m proposing to change the voting regulations such that, instead of votes being cast by country representatives (currently 1-vote per country), I believe that the votes should be cast by competitors registered at the most previous World Championships.

My reasoning is based upon the lack of information transfer that preceded the 2002 World Championships in the USA. Several months prior to the 2002 event, a proposal was put forward to change our point scoring system. This was voted upon by our WHF membership and passed. Subsequently came a hue and cry from our pilot base: many claimed they were not consulted when their representatives cast their votes. I can attest to this fact as my own country rep did not contact any of the three active Canadian drivers and yet cast his vote. In addition, as the then Secretary of the WHF, I received numerous complaints from many active drivers stating that they knew nothing of the point change proposal and would have liked to be able to discuss it with their representatives – but were not given the opportunity. The WHF responded to this problem by holding an impromptu ballot amongst present drivers just prior to the 2002 racing program commencing whereupon the WHF representative vote was overturned.

We should ask ourselves: Are not the rules and regulations primarily there for the pilots? Yet we ask – with no disrespect intended – delegates who have yet to see a hovercraft race, decide upon our regulations? It makes no sense. Those who are most affected should be the people casting the ballots.

I’m suggesting that we amend the WHF Constitution to change from “Each member country shall have one vote” to “one-vote per registered racing competitor” as registered at the previous World Hovercraft Championships”.

I would like this proposal to be placed upon the meeting agenda for the WHF General Meeting scheduled for Monday, September 6^th.

Bob Rennick

WHF Technical Director

WHF Web Page

If you have any upcoming announcements that you feel should be included in either the WHF Bulletin or placed upon the WHF web page, please contact the WHF secretary via email at worldhovercraftfederation@planet.nl

Items for discussion via e-mail

The suggestion made by our Vice President for Asia, Owen Ellis, in the last bulletin that the format of Formula 25 races in our Championships should be changed from the traditional multi short races to a reduced number of longer may be endurance / team style races received little debate. The following is a précis of Owens’s suggestion – it may be that you will wish to discuss in your own country as it will almost certainly be up for discussion at our next Board / Delegate meeting.

Endurance racing:

I feel that the World Hoversport needs to look at alternative formats to the standard sprint formula.

Such a class has the capability of getting a lot more people involved and shifts the emphasis away from absolute performance to focus on reliability, durability and economy.

A few random points:

F25 would be an ideal class to convert since so many of its requirements would suit Endurance racing.

Endurance racing has the capacity to accommodate new classes in the future (ie.F35) and to easily expand the format (longer races, more drivers, etc.)

From a public relations point of view (for the future) the E in Fe could also represent Economy, Ecology and Environment

I suggest that introduction should be implemented ASAP.  If possible for WHC2004

A very simple format is suggested   

2 one-hour races

Staged on the first and second day (keeping last day free for other formula racing and finals)

Two pilots say from the one country

Each pilot required to drive a minimum of one lap   

Maybe no refuelling (increased safety) Or a designated number of compulsory pit stops.

Le Mans type start, with engine off– to add a little theatre.

The races could be staged “off peak” to avoid boring the spectators