eSailing World Championship set for Florida finale

The world's top eight eSailors will battle it out to be crowned 2018 eSailing World Champion at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall from 13:00 - 14:00 local time (GMT-4) in front of a live crowd and viewers watching across World Sailing's YouTube and Facebook.

After the launch of the eSailing World Championship on 10 May 2018, more than 16,200 registered eSailors from 74 countries have competed, sailing more than 80,000 races across 60 one to three day challenges - all with the aim of reaching the two-week Playoff Round.

Only 1,000 eSailors advanced to the Playoffs and over a two-week period, they battled it out to hit the top of the leaderboard where only the top competitors would be invited to Sarasota.

The Finalists

After an intense two weeks that saw 6,000 races completed, France's LaMerNoire came out on top to book the first spot in Sarasota.

Joining LaMerNoire on the start line for the first eSailing World Championship Final will be:
AlessandroMerlino (ITA)
Cruzolator (ESP)
L1 (FRA)
epicure (FRA)
HAVUC (TUR)
Velista71 (ITA)
KZ-7 (NZL)

Format

The top eight will sail three races at different virtual venues in three boats and will utilise a low-point scoring system, discarding their worst race.

Race one will be sailed in the J/70, a popular worldwide keelboat, in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. The fleet will sail two laps of a windward leeward course.

The pace will increase for the second race of the series as the competition heads to San Francisco, USA to sail in the Nacra 17, the Olympic Mixed Multihull. A reaching start will lead into two laps before concluding with a reaching finish.

To conclude the series of races, the eSailors will race the 49er, the high performance Olympic skiff on a two lap windward leeward course.

The top six eSailors will advance to a winner-take-all final. Sydney, Australia will be the virtual host with competitors racing a two lap windward leeward course on the J70. It will all boil down to the final race and whoever crosses the finish line first will be crowned eSailing World Champion.

When and where to watch

The eSailing World Championship Final will be held in Sarasota, Florida, USA at the Van Wezel Performing Arts Hall on Tuesday 30 October from 13:00 - 14:00 local time (GMT-4).