Star Sailors League: born from sailors for sailors

When in 2013 a group of sailing enthusiasts – particularly fond of the Star boat – met and started moulding the project that would have become SSL, they had a major goal in mind: make it competitive and sustainable.

You can find the SSL concept of competitiveness on SSL final knock-out day, where you start with 11 best team and after three races you end up with just the top 4 remaining teams fighting for the podium. You can also find it in the yearly ranking: the more regattas you attend and the better you perform, the more points you get. If you are among the top twenties at the end of the year you have lots of chances of being invited to the prestigious SSL Finals in Nassau, Bahamas competing with top sailing athletes. It doesn't get more competitive than this.

The idea of sustainability is strictly meant for the sailors. Most of them cannot count on the support of sponsors or National Federations. This is where a prize purse finds its purpose: it pushes sailors to give their best and at the same time gives them the opportunity to invest in their sailing through training, travelling and equipment.

In SSL plans for the future, training holds a good spot. Attracting youngsters to sailing, particularly Star sailing, through training sessions with Pros, by giving them boats and trying to respond to their needs is one of SSL priorities, but before this, by 2020, Star Sailors League has a goal to aim for.

In order to have a fair ranking, SSL intends to organize four Grand Slams and the Finals in the next four years. The Grand Slams will be hosted in various locations with a different set of conditions. There will be a Lake GS – with the trickiness of its wind, a City GS – held in the heart of big cities with traffic and narrow waters, a Breeze GS – held at traditionally windy spots, and a Bay GS – where shifting winds and strategy game are the main peculiarities.

These four Grand Slams will give a good amount of points; winning two of them will probably secure a spot in the Finals, a good reason to trying to be at every one of them.

The first SSL Lake Grand Slam took place in September 2015 on Lake Neauchatel, in Switzerland, and it was hosted by the yacht club in Grandson. More than 80 teams entered and among them there were many Olympic medalists, world champions and excellent athletes. The wind in that week proved that any lake conditions can be difficult: in one single day it can invert directions and make a downind last beat turn into an upwind reaching arrival, it can go from strong to very light and one side can have a lot more pressure than the other. In Grandson we had it all and it was fun (at least it was to watch, sure a bit frustrating if you ended up in the wrong side of the lake..)

In less than two months' time SSL will have the first City Grand Slam and it couldn't be hosted by a more nautical German venue: Hamburg. Entries were limited because of the size of lake Alster (only 1,5x1,5 miles) and it only took 24hrs from the opening to close them.

A good start, indeed, SSL is now working in delivering another great Grand Slam.

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