New President at International Tornado Association.

by International Tornado Association on 25 Feb 2001 After six years at the helm, dual Olympic Medallist (Bronze '92 & Silver 2000) and four times ('89, '92, '98, '01) World Champion John Forbes of Australia has handed over the reigns of
the International Tornado Association at the recent Annual General Meeting in South Africa.

John Forbes has been involved with the running of the ITA since the evolvment of the 'big rig' back in 1993 and, as one year being Vice President in 1994 and then as President since
1995, he now hands over the top job to the USA Tornado sailor Michael Grandfield.

Having steered and survived the class through two Olympic 'class selections' with the ISAF and now completed the smooth introduction of the newly clad Tornado rig which includes
spinnaker, twin trapeze, square top main and modified jib, Forbes felt the time was right to move aside and let someone else take over. Forbes said 'I have been sailing Tornado
internationally for 14 years now (since 1987) and have been involved with either the Australian or International Tornado Association throughout that entire time so I guess now I
should spend a bit of time with my family before Athens 2004 gets too close.'

Michael Grandfield has been Vice President of the USITA for some time and played a vital 'neutral' role during the 1996 and 2000 US Tornado Olympic Team Selections. He is also the
Regatta Organiser for the 2002 Tornado World Championship being held at Martha's Vineyard in conjunction with the A Class World Championship. They expect to see 150 - 200 of the
high speed catamarans on the island during September 2002.

A full list of new ITA Committee Members follows:

President: Michael Grandfield - USA mgrandfield@sailingwind.com
Vice Pres: Helge Sach helge.sach@web.de
Vice Pres: Jim Young (webmaster) 73547.2245@compuserve.com
Secretary: Juergen Tiemann (Magazine Editor) tornado@segel.de
Treasurer: Justus Wolf. Fax: + 49 40 3039 2549
ITA Committee: Manfred Piso (Jury) mpiso@mail.cso.co.at , Hugh Styles (Events) hugh@zingads.com , Luca Remagnino (Ranking List) lurema@usa.net, Herbert Dercksen (Technical)
herbie@tng.nl, Robbie Daniel (Website Questions) funinthesun@juno.com .
ITA Technical Committee: Mitch Booth 100400.3355@compuserve.com, Darren Bundock bundy@aussailing.com.au, Goran Marstrom mail@sailcenter.se, Pablo Soldano/Giorgio
Zuccoli ullmangz@iol.it, Duncan Ross dunxross@compuserve.com, Johannes Polgar Jpolgar@aol.com