Newport, R.I. — The New York Yacht Club, which sparked the keelboat team racing revolution with the creation of the Hinman Masters Team Race in 2000, will see this discipline attain the highest competitive level in the sport when it hosts the World Sailing 2025 Team Race World Championship, May 28 to June 1, at Harbour Court in Newport, R.I.
The first team racing world championship in a decade will be sailed in the Club’s fleet of 23-foot Sonar keelboats in a two-on-two format. While not as widespread as the three-on-three format that is used in scholastic and collegiate racing in the United States and elsewhere around the world, the two-on-two format has won a lot of support with its easy-to-understand scoring format—whichever team finishes in last position loses the race—non-stop action and smaller team size.
For more on previous editions of the Team Racing World Championship, click here.
“When this came forward, when the bid package came out, we said of course we’d want to run this,” says Susan Daly, co-chair of the New York Yacht Club’s Team Racing subcommittee. “It’s a natural fit for us given our history both with keelboat team racing and having run a team race worlds in 2005 in Vanguard 15 dinghies. This world championship is a great way to kick off a packed 2025 regatta calendar at Harbour Court.”
In addition to the Hinman Masters regatta—for which skippers must be 45 or older and crew must be 40 or older—the New York Yacht Club runs three other highly regarded team race events each summer: the Morgan Cup, the New York Yacht Club Grandmasters and the Women’s 2v2. The Club also created the Global Team Race Regatta and hosted it in 2018 and 2022. The Club expertly maintains a fleet of 22 Sonar sailboats that are reserved for team racing and the occasional fleet race regatta. In the four team-race regattas hosted by the New York Yacht Club, spinnakers are used. But the format for the world championship will mandate the jib-and-main-only configuration.
A dozen teams are anticipated, including one from the host New York Yacht Club. The remainder will be qualified through their member national authorities. For United States sailors hoping to compete, a qualifying regatta is anticipated in early 2025. The NOR for the 2025 Team Race World Championship can be found here. The next edition will be held in August 2026 at the Gamla Stans Yacht Sällskap, Stockholm, Sweden, and is supported by the City of Stockholm and the Swedish Sailing Federation.
Teams that meet the eligibility requirements set out in the Notice of Race may submit a Request for Invitation by using this link.
Photos: Stuart Wemple / New York Yacht Club
