World Sailing League

Since 2OO4 there were rumours about a new sailing circuit. On the 8^th February Coutts, Cayard & Lagos announced the creation of the World Sailing League. There had been some stops & start, but this announcement confirms it will take place.

 

They intend to bring sailing to the public by racing near the coast. There will be very short races, targeting 30 – 40 minutes. Due to this is tacking and jibing very important, and it will make the race very exciting, and that will be great. The sailing races are really spectacular, but the thing is the big races, like the Volvo Ocean Race, Americas cup and so on, are all offshore. That’s why you can’t enjoy of it like tennis or soccer, but that’ll be changed due to this. Outside the fleet racing, there will probably also be time trials and slalom racing, but this isn’t officially confirmed yet. I don’t know what the slalom will look like, probably something like the surfing or so. The time trials are pretty awkward, because the wind can blow much harder for the first boat than for the second. So everyone wants to go on a particular moment, because the boat with the biggest squall will definitely win. I guess this all will be tested when the prototype is ready, and then we’ll have more information.

 

Coutts & Cayard love exciting and fun sailing, and that’s precisely what you get on a Catamaran. It is light, powerful, really fast, and it can sail near the coast. So they have decided to use 70-foot catamarans. They think you will need an eight men crew. I think they probably won’t need to put up or drop a sail, because the races are short, and they’ll have a special spinnaker (something like a code-0).

 

These catamarans are very expensive. Lagos has committed 60 million dollars for the design and building of the 70-foot catamarans, and the rest will probably be used to help get the circuit rolling. The teams need a budget of about five to six million, what isn’t that much, because this is the same for the volvo ocean race in a year, and they only get like eight boats at the start.

 

A team, including Marc Van Peteghem and Lauriot Prévost have designed the boats. By summer 2007 the design should be ready, and the first boat should be in the water at the end of the year. They hope to have fourteen catamarans by 2009, when the first race starts, each represented by a country. The races will take places in several top locations, and the winner gets 2 million dollars. There is also a huge container ship to transport the boats.

 

If everything goes like they planned, it will definitely be a nice experience, and a nice race. No wonder, with Russel Coutss (44), listing an Olympic gold medal and three Americas cup victories as a skipper. Paul Cayard, the first winner of the Volvo Ocean Race, has won seven world championships. Together with João Lagos, a Portuguese sport promoter, they are a perfect team. They even intend to join the race themselves, each with his own team. The battle will be great.

 

I’m looking forward to it!