| The World Match Racing Tour, previously known as ISAF Match Racing World Championship, now
in its 22nd year, has committed its event to monohull match racing and stated its new
strategy; this is mainly to ensure sustainability as well as of the event.
The only yachting annual sailing event that is outside the Olympic Classes and has visited
more than three continents, in 2010, is the World Racing Tour. The Extreme Sailing Series
are challenging the difference by planning to hold more events outside of Europe in the
coming year, 2010. In the USA, the RC44 Championship is adding events and a proposed annual
America’s cup series. They aim to have this event as global as possible.
The World Match Racing Tour has to be relevant to the sponsors which means it has to expand
to relevant markets for stakeholders. There are no World Match Racing Tour yachting events
in USA, the Middle East, Australia and the United Kingdom. Borrowing a few ideas from the
Volvo Ocean’s Race book, the World Match Racing Tour have announced that there will be 6
new events added to the tour through a bidding process. They will be managed by external
consultants. For the host cities, the bidding process will be revealed later. However, the
venues must meet the environmental criteria, in terms of wind, and they will also have
financial obligations to meet the media plans as well as prize-money.
The event has a unique and new business model where the event organizers provide the boats
and yachts. They also make sure that the sailor is matched well to the yacht or boat. The
venues are also expected to supply the new kind of match racing boats. The boat should be
a result of the design competition for a monohull in the 42-48 foot range.
There was also an issue raised by the survey conducted by Sail-World that majority of the
yachting funs want to watch the match racing conducted in monohull boats. The CEO of World
Match Racing Tour commented: "As rights' holders we have a duty to act in the interests of
match racing. The majority of people feel that the true essence of match racing is about
intense, highly maneuverable, closely fought, head-to-head battles and we have developed
our strategy to take into account these views."
World Match Race Tour will be increasing the tour’s bonus prize to twice the amount, US$
500,000. This means in 2011, the yachting sailor will complete for a total prize fund of
US$ 1,750,000. Submissions are invited from international designers as well as boat
builders to create more boats for yachting for the new events that are joining the tour. |
