Foiling Week 2024 wraps up with thrilling racing and a renewed focus on sustainability and youth sailing

Foiling Week is unique in the sailing world in that it is about more than regattas, and is equally focused on innovation, developing the sport and giving back to the community.

This year’s edition was dedicated to Youth Sailing and included a well-attended clinic for Under-19s organised in collaboration with the Italian Sailing Federation (FIV), a concrete commitment to the young people of the Azores Islands, and prizes dedicated to the Youth categories. These initiatives will continue throughout the year.

Foiling Week also focused on sustainability and development of sailing. Clinics were run in collaboration with the Magenta Project – winners of the 2023 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award – to promote opportunities for female sailors. Team member Caterina degli Uberti said, “The Magenta Project is a global non-profit collective of passionate volunteers committed to developing pathways and opportunities for female sailors, so to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in sailing.

“Our Foiling Pathway is the missing piece, providing opportunities to advance female talent both on and off the water, as team members serve dual roles in sailing and campaign management.”

SailGP Denmark and Rio 2016 bronze medalist Katja Salskov-Iversen, together with We Are Foiling Master Coach Francesco Bianchi, ran a two-day clinic as part of World Sailing’s Steering the Course, a global initiative bringing together sailing communities to highlight the achievements of women within the sport and attract newcomers.

She said: “All coaches here today are women, and we are here to inspire them to go for that dream. It’s important, we need to get more women in sailing, not just as sailors or coaches, but also in other roles around out sport. Here at Foiling Week, there are so many cool opportunities, I wish I had these when I was younger, but we have them now and it’s just great.”

Among the other many initiatives this year, a World Sailing Sustainability Panel took place with the participation of World Sailing Vice President Yann Rocherieux.

World Sailing Vice-President, Yann Rocherieux commented, “For World Sailing it was great to see so many people sharing the view and the initiatives around sustainability, because for the International Federation this is a central theme. Being at the boat park here has been incredible, I’ve seen a lot of young sailors, and I am pleased to see how much the new generation is caring about sustainability projects.”

The Foiling SuMoth Challenge – a unique design competition which challenges students to construct competitive Moth class compliant foilers while also considering the environmental, social, and economic impacts of the manufacturing process – saw 11 teams from six countries and representing some of the most reputable technical universities in the world.

The Foiling SuMoth Challenge is composed of three stages, for a total of 1000 points. The first, on design, is worth 500 points, performance trials second stage is worth 300 points. Racing is final and is worth 200 points.

Rafale ÉTS (CAN) won the design stage, followed by the Politecnico di Torino Sailing Team (ITA) and the Chalmers Formula Sailing Team (SWE). The second stage was won by last year’s overall leaders, Audace Sailing Team (ITA), with the Politecnico di Milano Sailing Team (ITA) taking second and the University of Southampton SuMoth Team (GBR) third place. The final racing stage was won by the Politecnico di Milano Sailing Team (ITA) with Rafale ÉTS and the Politecnico di Torino taking second and third place respectively. After the toughest competition ever, the Politecnico di Milano Sailing Team was named overall winner of the 2024 Foiling SuMoth Challenge.

The racing elements of Foiling Week were just as competitive, with WASZP, BirdyFish, Switch One Design, Moth and the ETF26 class races.

The ETF26 class sailed 10 races. Last year’s winners, Entreprises du Morbihan, skippered by Matthieu Salomon, retained the title, finishing top of the scoreboard ahead of Team ROCKWOOL, skippered by SailGP Denmark’s Nicolai Sehested, and Blueshift Sailing Team, skippered by Henri Demesmaeker.

Garda’s first-ever SUP downwind foil race from Torbole to Malcesine and back was won by foiling pioneer Philippe Axmann, followed by Lukas Schuler and new foiling “guru” Gwen Le Tutour. Three-times SUP Foil World Champion Olivia Piana was the first woman to finish. Piana then presented a short film dedicated to her pump foiling exploit along the Portuguese coast, Chasing Horizons, as part of the Foiling Film Festival.

The Moth Class wrapped up Foiling Week with a total of eight races sailed. Participants included competitors in the upcoming Unicredit Youth America’s Cup including back-to-back winner Enzo Balanger (Orient Express Racing Team), Lucas Calabrese (American Magic), and Jann Schüpbach (Alinghi Red Bull Racing). Spanish Tokyo 2020 Olympian and SailGP Spain star Joel Rodriguez Perez and British Olympic medalist Simon Hiscocks, who competed after grabbing the silver medal in the Switch class, completed the line up.

Balanger once again won the event, finishing ahead of New Zealander Mattias Coutts and Hiscocks. German Lisa Schweigert was first in the women’s division, while Antonin Radue of Switzerland was the best Youth Sailor.

Next year’s Foiling Week will take place at the end of February 2025 in Pensacola, Florida, where the social theme will be “Re-Generation”. The goal will be to work towards restoring regatta locations to a state similar to the pre-anthropic one, promoting practices that reduce environmental impact and foster the regeneration of marine ecosystems and embracing a holistic vision that also includes equity and inclusivity.

Images © Martina Orsini, We Are Foiling Media.