'Sailing Champions League' Series 2017 Program in J/70’s - Overall
by Stuart Johnstone on 25 Jan 2017
J70 SailWorld Sandra Entwistle
The impact of the Sailing League Program, originally created in Germany by Oliver Schwall’s Konzeptwerft Group in Hamburg, Germany and their J/Germany partners Mittelmann’s Werft, has simply re-defined “club sailing” in Europe- for thousands of sailors across the continent.
Started in 2013 “on a wing and a prayer”, the dynamic team managed to engage 18 sailing clubs in their first season in 2014 to hatch the Deutsche Segel-Bundesliga. Teams of four sailors from across Germany sailed “college-style” regattas, rotating in each team after sailing short 10-15 minutes races on evenly matched J/70s. It has proved to be an extremely popular and very successful format.
Since that time, the Sailing Champions League was created to provide an overall European Champion for the fourteen countries participating from Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany (Junior and Open), Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. The 2017 qualification program for the 300+ sailing clubs across Europe includes the following schedule:
• Act 1: 11-13 August, St. Petersburg Yacht Club, St. Petersburg, Russia
• Act 2: 1-3 September, Segel-Club St. Moritz, St. Moritz, Switzerland
• Final: 22-24 September, Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, Porto Cervo, Italy
The extraordinary impact that J/70s and the sailing leagues are having on “grass roots” sailing in Europe is quite astonishing.
The League currently has some Wild Card entries available for 2017, so if any Australian clubs would like to enter they should contact
www.sailing-championsleague.com.
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