Feature

Women’s World Tour returns to USA

Published on January 19th, 2024

The Women’s World Match Racing Tour returns to the USA to begin its 2024 season as Eastport Yacht Club (Annapolis, MD) and St. Francis Yacht Club (San Francisco, CA) have once again teamed up to host the top women’s match racing teams at back-to-back events.

Following the success in 2023 of the inaugural Casa Vela Cup (StFYC), and the return of the popular Santa Maria Cup (EYC) after ten years at EYC, both clubs have coordinated their Grade 2 international women’s match racing events in 2024 with the Santa Maria Cup on April 23-26 and the Casa Vela Cup on May 2-4. Both events will use J/22s.

In 2023, the Casa Vela Cup saw Celia Willison (NZL) and her Edge Women’s Match Team defeat Sweden’s Anna Östling and her Wings team in a tense final. However, the Santa Maria Cup had things reversed, with the Swedes beating the Kiwis. Third and fourth places in both events ended the same with the USA’s Nicole Breault of Vela Racing winning out over New Zealand’s Megan Thomson and 2.0 Racing Team.

The 2024 Santa Maria Cup and Casa Vela Cup will both join Season 3 of the Women’s World Match Racing Tour, which had four events in 2023. Currently the world’s only global professional sailing series for women, 32 teams and over 140 female athletes competed on the first two seasons of the tour since it was re-launched in 2022 with events in the USA, France, New Zealand, Greece and Denmark.