Portugal to host Youth Sailing Worlds

The venue to host the 2025 Youth Sailing World Championships on December 12-20 has been selected, with the 54th edition to be held in Quarteira, Portugal.

For more than half a century, the Youth Sailing World Championships have been the pinnacle of youth sailing performance, providing the global stage for future sailing stars to shine and becoming a major stepping stone for many world and Olympic champions.

The Youth Sailing World Championships follows a similar format to Olympic sailing where all sailors compete on a level playing field across all events. In total, 11 events will be sailed in male, female and mixed categories, with the events open to sailors aged above the age of 12 years and under the age of 19 years on December 31, 2025.

The Organizing Committee will be comprised of Vilamoura Sailing, with the support of Marina de Vilamoura, the City of Loulé, and the Portuguese Sailing Federation. The event is anticipating over 400 sailors from 70 countries.

In preparation for the Youth Sailing World Championship, a series of events will take place, specifically designed for the participating classes. The Youth Portugal Grand Prix will be held in several rounds:

December 18-20, 2024
April 5-7, 2025
December 2-5, 2025

A Notice of Race will be published in January 2025.

Details: https://worldsailingywc.org/

The Youth Sailing World Championships was first held in Angelholm, Sweden in 1971 where 16 nations competed for the inaugural titles in the two-person dinghies 420 and Flipper.

As the regatta evolved further classes were added to bring the best young sailing talent across the world together in one place and in 1984 the Mistral windsurfer was added to the list of events with Knut Budig (GER) taking the first gold medal in San Diego, California.

Open to sailors aged 19 and under, past notable winners include American’s Cup skippers, Chris Dickson (NZL), Russell Coutts (NZL), Dean Barker (NZL); Olympic medallists, Ben Ainslie (GBR), Robert Scheidt (BRA), Alessandra Sensini (ITA), Iain Percy (GBR) and Elise Rechichi (AUS); Volvo Ocean Race sailors like Stuart Bannatyne (NZL) and Richard Clarke (CAN).

Source: World Sailing