The 2025 Women’s Match Racing World Championship will be hosted by Chicago Yacht Club in September in the fleet of TOM 28 match racing boats. Racing will take place right in front of the City Centre from Chicago Yacht Club’s Belmont Shore base.
The 2025 Women’s Match Racing Worlds will be an official stage of the 2025 Women’s World Match Racing Tour.
Chicago’s match racing history is relatively recent. In 2009, Don Wilson founded the Chicago Match Race Center (CMRC) to bring world-class match racing to Lake Michigan. The center provided a dedicated facility with Tom 28s and Elliott 6ms, attracting international sailors. CMRC hosted its first event in June 2009, marking the start of organized match racing in the city. The program’s success continued with CMRC winning the bid to host the U.S. Match Racing Championship in 2014, followed by the Chicago Yacht Club securing the bid in 2018 and in 2025.
Chicago has remained a premiere venue for match racing, with Chicago Yacht Club annually hosting 2 to 3 major match racing regattas: the Chicago Grand Slam is a Grade 2 International event attracting top sailors from around the world and is a part of the USA Grand Slam series and the World Match Racing Tour; CYC also annually hosts a qualifier for the US Match Racing Championship which attracts the top US sailors looking to compete in the National Championship; in addition to a regional or national championship between the Open US Championship, Women’s US Championship, or MCSA Championship. These competitions continue to attract top sailors, solidifying Chicago’s reputation as a world-class destination for match racing and competitive sailing.
