Former British Hobie 16 National Champion and ardent supporter of the campaign to have catamarans re-instated for the 2012 Olympics in Weymouth, Simon Morgan has apparently changed his tune.

As any serious sailor will remember the decision of the ISAF council to prefer the rarely practised discipline of Women’s Match racing while dismissing an area of the sport popular with almost a quarter of all those who take to the water under sail, was one of the most heavily criticized decisions in sailing history.

Morgan, Managing Director of Wildwind Holidays, was outraged by the decision, and, in association with many others similarly aghast at ISAF’s decision making process, spent much of the last 2 years campaigning to have the catamaran reinstated, even paying for a  double page advert and open letter to ISAF President Goran Petersson in the popular British ‘Yachts and Yachting’  at the time of the Bejing Olympics when giant images of the Olympic catamaran class were being displayed prominently across Quindao’s high rise office buildings.

Reports from the BBC record 795 fatalities from the earthquake that shook Chile on Saturday 27^th February. Local authorities also estimate that 2 million Chileans have been seriously affected by the quake and around 1.5 million homes have been damaged in the worst natural disaster to devastate the country in 50 years. The Chilean Class40 skipper, Felipe Cubillos, is already involved with relief work in the Sexta Región south of Valparaiso and Santiago and is making an appeal for aid on behalf of his countrymen.

“The tremendous earthquake that has whipped our beautiful land reminds us once again that Chile is a country of extremes,” explained Cubillos on Tuesday. “A country that is accustomed to the greatest forces of nature and with a population whose enormous heart enables her to keep standing upright with pride and dignity.” In the 2008-09 Portimão Global Ocean Race, Cubillos and his co-skipper, José Muñoz, sailed their Class40 Desafio Cabo De Hornos around the world, entering the record books as the first Chileans to race around Cape Horn. “During the race, we learnt a lesson that we will never forget,” he continues. “You are never going to conquer or dominate the forces of nature, but the important thing is to have the strength to get back up when nature’s power has beaten you to the ground.”