Vendée Globe winner to present opening keynote address at WYRF

by MaxComm Communication on 26 Sep 2013 Frenchman François Gabart, 30, winner of the Vendée Globe on board Macif, will be presenting the World Yacht Racing Forum 2013 opening keynote address. A former Olympic Tornado sailor, second of the Solitaire du Figaro in 2010, Gabart is one of the most talented sailors of his generation.

'I am delighted to be involved in the World Yacht Racing Forum and I look forward to sharing my vision of the sport with key members of our industry', he commented.' The sport of sailing is changing fast; we see this in San Francisco, but also in Europe. The World Yacht Racing Forum gives the sailing world a unique chance to be able to gather together and help shape the future of our industry and sport and I look forward to being part of it.'

Now in its sixth year, the World Yacht Racing Forum (WYRF) will return to Gothenburg, Sweden on the 10-11 December 2013. This year’s event includes a number of new, exciting features and a world class speaker line-up.

The World Yacht Racing Forum is the leading yacht racing industry conference, and is the only occasion in the year where the leaders of the industry gather, away from the water, to discuss their mutual challenges and opportunities. 2012’s event saw over 250 attendees including key note speakers such as Ben Ainslie and Juan Kouyoumdjian and participating companies including; Volvo, SCA, Stena, Volvo Ocean Race, OC Sport, MaxComm, Vendee Globe, America’s Cup Event Authority, Mirabaud, Virtual Regatta, GAASTRA, Capitalize, Farr Design, Oracle Racing, Atlant Ocean Racing, Multiplast and more.

The World Yacht Racing Forum will address the major challenges in the yacht racing world and will gather the key players from yacht racing event organisers, teams, sponsors, agencies and sailors to help shape the future of the yacht racing industry. Once again the event will be co-located with the Yacht Racing Design and Technology Symposium which will take place concurrently with the WYRF on December 10th.