The International Ranking List will start to operate from 1st January 2009.
The IRL shall serve the following purposes:

• Rank all interested dragon sailors corresponding to their relative performance within the last 12 month.
• Use the current ranking information to fill up groups for an event with group starts (like the Gold Cup 2003 in Medemblik).
• Extend the current concept of International qualification to World and European Championship: The best 25% helmsmen of the International ranking list of the previous year are qualified for the World and European Championships of the ongoing year.

Unfortunately, there were 2 problems that stopped its operation in 2008.

These were:

• The computer programmers had originally been developed in Germany for the German Dragon Fleet. They have operated successfully in Germany for some years. As the programmes are now to be used internationally, they have had to be transposed into English. This proved more difficult than originally anticipated. This has, however, now been successfully completed and is fully operational.
• The original test runs in 2007 highlighted the difficulties in identifying the individual sailors. There were a number of errors as a result of names being spelt differently, differing alphabets in different countries and people changing boats.
  The fundamental decision taken for 2009 is that the Ranking List will be for helmsmen only (i.e. not for crew and not for boats). It is essential that we can accurately identify each helmsman at each regatta.
  The mechanism chosen to achieve this is the ISAF sailor registration and classification system. This means that each helmsman who wants to participate in the IRL must register with the ISAF in order to be given his/her unique alpha/numeric code number.
  It can be done on-line (www.isaf.org), is free and only takes a couple of minutes. It would be advisable to register as soon as possible and in any event before the end of 2008. All regatta organizers for ranking events must also ensure that ISAF Registration numbers for all competitors are included in regatta entry forms as well as having the helmsman’s included in the results. This will ensure that the result can be recorded correctly into the computer programme for the IRL.

Please note that the IRL can only operate successfully in both competitors and organizers follow the simple procedures outlined above.