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With more than 50 international delegates, ISAF Nominated Experts and invited speakers, including ISAF Vice-President Nazli Imre, in attendance, 17 unique presentations were delivered touching on a variety of subjects within the sport of sailing.

Representatives of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (SASCOC) joined delegates to see first-hand how ISAF works with its members and supports the successful Long Term Participant Development (LTPD) initiative in South Africa.

The ISAF Development Symposium directly compliments the work of the ISAF Development and Youth Committee and helps ISAF gather valuable information on how to shape future training and development strategy. The delegates, many of whom are from new or emerging sailing nations, gain a valuable opportunity to have their voice heard and hear from colleagues around the world on best practice, successes and future opportunities.

As well as hosts South African Sailing another ten African nations made the trip to Cape Town as the Sail Africa project continues to develop. Read more on Sail Africa here.

Interest in further ISAF support for these nations was evident as Rob Holden, ISAF Regional Development Co-ordinator for 'Sail Africa' explained, "This really was a great event, especially due to there being so many nations here from all over the world. Having 11 National Sailing Federations present is a huge opportunity for developing sailing across this diverse continent.

"At this Symposium we have set in motion the planning for a number of Technical Courses for Coaches as well as possible attendance on this year's ISAF Training Scholarship. I look forward to seeing these requests for information become formally endorsed."

ISAF Training Scholarship graduates from Mozambique, Singapore, South Africa and Turkey shared their success stories and explained how they are continuing their national sport development based on the experience gained from the eight week course.

IFDS Development Committee Member Emma Hallén presented an outline of Disabled Sailing initiatives and how the International Association for Disabled Sailing (IFDS) is working to support national growth.

Mirco Babini, President of the International Kiteboarding Association (IKA) also took the delegates through the IKA's Kiteboarding Coaching Framework and ISAF / IKA 'Learn to Kite' syllabus developments.

Further topics of discussion included the IOC Olympic Solidarity funding, ISAF Coaching Framework, women in sport, Training Resources for Coaches / Sailors, educational curriculum partnerships with sailing schools and development of ISAF High Performance Centres. All those present agreed that the symposium was a good opportunity to share examples of training and development.

Dan Jaspers, ISAF Training and Development Manager on the outcomes of the event, "The 2014 Symposium, much like the previous events has given the International Sailing Federation first-hand feedback on what it is that our members want us to do to help them. It is apparent that translation of our resources is crucial for those MNAs and also for us to continue and spread out the regional development initiatives that we have started last year, such as Sail Africa. I thank all delegations for making their way to Cape Town and for the positivity shown by all nations regarding the work that has gone before and the developments that are still to come. The pro-active nature of the delegations here fills me with confidence that our work remains a priority."

A selection of the presentations which delegates received at the event can be found on the dedicated ISAF website page here.

A short teaser video of the 2014 Development Symposium as well as photgraphs are now available on the Facebook page here.

For more information about the development programmes available from ISAF please visit the website www.sailing.org/training or contact the Training and Development Department here.