Will faster boats save sailing?

An interesting conundrum is the mood for high performance sailing. As boat designs get faster, typically the necessary cost and skill increase as well, which is not a growth formula for a sport that could use growth. Or is speed the solution to all ills?

What if fast boats are introduced sooner to normalize the state of play for the next generation? Okay, but there remains a transition issue when youth sailors become adults, and then there are those people that begin sailing as adults.

An Australian initiative is taking on the questions with this update:

The Ronstan Junior Foiling Cup is a revolutionary new sailing series, specifically designed to inspire Junior sailors from 10 to 16 years old, by providing them the opportunity to compete in the very latest, one design foiling dinghies.

The concept is to motivate our junior sailors to participate, enjoy, and continue sailing after learning the basics in training classes, by developing their skills and natural reactions early, as a precursor to all high-performance sailing.

Being a relatively new discipline, foiling really pushes the fun factor, catching people’s imagination. The world stage is currently all foiling! SailGP, IMOCA, ORMA, Mini Transat, Americas Cup, and Youth and Women’s Americas Cup have all adopted this high performance mode of sailing with huge events reaching millions of people across the globe.

The Olympics are now also featuring more foiling classes with the addition of catamarans, sailboards and kites in recent Olympic cycles. Foiling dinghies are surely on the agenda next, so it has never been a better time for junior sailors to develop their foiling skills early for future campaigns.

The first event is being held at Bayview Yacht Racing Association in NSW, Australia on November 23-24 with more on the horizon. It is open to junior sailors from clubs throughout Sydney and NSW who are invited to compete in a knockout round robin race series, culminating in a final winner takes all race.

Details: https://www.byra.com.au/events/262485

The Nikki foiling dinghy has been selected as the ideal craft for this competition as it is small, manageable and easy for junior sailors to learn on, while being versatile, affordable and safe. With a planing hull, wings, and foils, it is most certainly exciting to sail and provides the full experience and thrill of both planing and foiling.

It is intended that this event is just the first round of a National and International competition where the winners qualify to compete in the following rounds of these regattas.

An important aspect of the Ronstan Junior Foiling Cup is to support all sailing clubs with enticing and maintaining the interest of their junior sailors in dinghies which are suited to local club activities from basic training to full foiling across all wind conditions.

Questions: class@nikkisailing.org.au