Feature Article from Magnus Wheatley @ Rule69 Blog
The Women’s World Match-Racing Tour points to an electrified women’s elite pathway…
Everywhere you look, women’s sport is on the up. It’s about time too. In sailing, the sport is blessed with iconic figures leading towards a bright, sustainable, fascinating future. Take the likes of Hattie Rogers, winning the women’s Moth World title this year and duking it admirably with the men. Inspirational. Take Hannah Mills, the wind whisperer and layline caller par excellence of SailGP. Take Emma Wilson, back from a torrid Paris Olympics and leading the way (again) in the iQFoil or Ellie Aldridge – pure box-office gold. Take Cole Brauer and Elizabeth ‘ZaZa’ Tucker doing their inspirational thing offshore. Take Justine Mettraux, Sam Davies, Pip Hare, Isabelle Joschke, Clarisse Crémer et al in the Vendee. Total legends and these are just the tip of a very large iceberg.
Shoreside the likes of the peerless Janet Grosvenor and Deb Fish are leading the way at the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Meanwhile Clare Harrington, the brilliant Clare Harrington, is about to make history as the first lady commodore of the finest club in the world, the New York Yacht Club.
There are countless other leadership examples – the RYA, the YJA, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron. No doubt you will email me a million others. Our sport is changing and it’s a healthy change, something I’ve championed through my writing for decades. When I see the Royal Yacht Squadron with its first lady commodore, the transformation will be complete. Breath held lads.
The America’s Cup in Barcelona did wonders beyond wonders for women’s sailing with the Puig Women’s AC event. SailGP knocked it out the park, first with a mandate, and then basking in the afterglow of integration as Martine Grael destroyed the glass ceiling forevermore to become the league’s first woman helm. Awesome. Even World Sailing did the right thing with Olympic equalisation of the sexes – and it’s not very often you’ll hear me praising that lot.
But make no mistake, despite all the opportunity, it is still a tough, competitive road to the top of the sport both on and off the water and you don’t become a Rogers, Mills, Aldridge, Wilson, Brauer, or Grael overnight.
I know female athletes working their socks off, training to unbelievable levels both on and off the water and all for an ultimate shot at glory in the pinnacle events. Calendars are set years in advance. Training is daily and intense. Sport/life balance is non-existent. Tough, tough, tough…
But one of the things that I think any athlete regardless of gender should consider when looking at their sailing career in its entirety, is a spell on the World Match-Racing Tour. It’s like a Swiss finishing school that engenders something deep down that the top sailors never forget.
Take the America’s Cup, in effect that came down to a combination of technology and match-racing at its very core, its essential essence. Take SailGP and the close quarters one-design fleet racing. When you are boat-on-boat, it’s match racing. Take the Olympic Games, when it comes to the medal race, no matter what you’ve done in the fleet racing, when the gold is on the line, it’s match-racing.
Being able to handle the pressure, position your boat and see the bigger picture are the skills that you hone on the World Match Racing Tour. I would argue it is perhaps the most vital tour for any aspiring God of tomorrow’s sailing and you just look through the roster of Conner, Coutts, Law, Crebbin, Turner, Kostecki, Brady, Hutchinson, Ficker, Davis, Perry, Kolius, Cudmore, Dickson, Holmberg, Read, Haines, Isler, Green, Williams, Bruni…the list of stone-cold sailing legends, demi-Gods, just goes on and on.
So I was delighted to see the Women’s World Match Racing Tour 2025 announce an absolutely iconic schedule yesterday evening with six events starting in San Francisco on the 28-31st May, and then Annapolis (4-7 June), Le Havre (6-9 June), Marstrand (30 June- 5 July), Chicago (17-20 September) and culminating in Bermuda, oh yeah Bermuda, on the 21-26 October.
What a tour! What a great thing to be involved in and what a fantastic springboard opportunity this presents. For the sailors it is literally the chance of a lifetime to get a team together, gel, tweak, adapt, and ultimately prove yourselves on.
It’s 2025, three years off any Olympic cycle, probably three years off the next AC, and it’s just a no-brainer to give it a whirl. You won’t regret it. Big guns are lining up for this. It could well be the best, most exciting, tour of the year.
And here’s a request to any brand or commercial manager out there thinking of getting into sailing. If ever there was an opportunity to stratospherically catapult your brand, it’s right here.
Women’s sailing is arriving fast and going to levels of media acceptance and profile unseen before. It is the perfect vehicle to hitch a fast ride on and the Women’s World Match-Racing Tour is prime-time with awesome athletes, great back stories, serious heartfelt gratitude, enthusiasm, desperate competition and photogenic opportunities that the rest of the sport can only dream of.
The Women’s World Match-Racing Tour is anything but a punt, it’s a bet on a sure thing. If I was allocating dollars, this is where the smart money would be going. Contact World Match Racing Tour Director James Pleasance directly: jamespleasance@wmrt.com – he’d be delighted to take your email and would ensure the ultimate bang for your buck.
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