90 days to go until the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup

Marit Bouwmeester at the Delta Lloyd Regatta 2011 © Sander van der Borch

With fewer than 90 days to go to the start of the first regatta, EUROSAF announce the launch of the Champions Sailing Cup website and publish the Notice of Series.

With the start of the first EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup regattas now less than 90 days away, EUROSAF have launched the series website, which will link all five regattas in the series and publish results for each event, and the series. At the same time the Notice of Series has been published. Individual regattas will publish their Notice of Race on each of the event websites, along with information concerning entry, and more.

The series commences on 8th May, in Italy, just ten days after the conclusion of the ISAF Sailing World Cup regatta in Hyères on 27th April. Each regatta will offer all Olympic, and aspiring Olympic sailors, the opportunity to compete in four high-quality, contiguous, regattas, over an eight week period, with the fifth regatta held later in the year, as a grand finale to the series and the European season. Each of the regattas are based on well-established events, Garda Trentino Olympic Week, Delta Lloyd Regatta in Medemblik, Sail for Gold in Weymouth & Portland and Kieler Woche, one of the oldest regattas in Europe, plus the Semaine Olympique Française, which from 2013 takes place in La Rochelle. The dates for each of the regattas in 2013 and 2014 were announced on 1st November, 2012. (see appended schedule).

EUROSAF are very excited at being able to offer sailors and sailing this new series starting this year, and are delighted to have brought together five major regatta organisers in order to do so. Dan Ibsen, a Vice-President of EUROSAF and Chairman of the EUROSAF Events Committee, said, "When ISAF announced their plans for the new Sailing World Cup Regattas, we in EUROSAF saw an opportunity to fill the gap left in Europe with a new series of top level regattas, but in order to do so we needed the willing cooperation of the organisers. Some hard work and detailed planning was necessary, but everyone saw the strength and benefit to sailing of working together, so the new series was formed. 2013 will be our first year, so we are only at the beginning, but our objective is to develop the series to be seen as one event, sailed at five different locations, and for it to become a premier series for Olympic sailors. We want sailors from around the world to come back every year, knowing they will be competing against top competition, at expertly run and organised regattas".

The EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup website will be found at championscup.eurosaf.org/

EUROSAF are working with SailRacer to develop the website and are extremely grateful to them for their invaluable support and guidance in this project. SailRacer will be adding more information and functionality as the website develops, and EUROSAF look forward to a long and fruitful association with them.