Happy Holidays from the International Melges 24 Class Association!
December 23, 2022 - As the joyous holiday season is here, we wish you on behalf of the International Melges 24 Class Association a happy and peaceful time together with your loved ones. Here's IM24CA Chair Laura Grondin’s message looking back to 2022 to look forward to 2023! Full message sent to the Class available here.
Dear Melges 24 sailors,
Thank you to all the sailors that raced your Melges 24 in 2022! Whether you attended a local event or a global event, getting out and racing builds excitement amongst the class members. In 2023, we are going to re-ignite our effort to find all of the Melges 24s. We have people who want to buy boats and we know there are boats not being raced.
This past year, we were able to host the World Championship for the first time since 2019 and our second post-pandemic European championship. The preparation for our next Worlds in Middelfart, Denmark in June is well underway, and registration will open in the new year. We will host a North Americans in Toronto in September - a great city to visit so plan to come!
We have opened the bidding for the 2025 Worlds and 2024 Europeans so that these events can get on the calendar early next year. The bids to host these events are due not later than March 1, 2023 for voting at an EGM to be held on Wednesday, April 12th. The 2024 Worlds will be in August in San Francisco - another beautiful and windy venue.
Through much effort, the European Sailing Series has been revised and expanded and we have created a new European ranking system. Our main goal is to provide opportunities for competitive and fun racing for as many teams as possible by including more events in both the sailing series and the ranking system. Read more about the improvements here. The Notice of Race and exact scoring of the reorganised Melges 24 European Sailing Series (factors, scoring, weighting, prizes) will be published in January 2023.
I’d like to formally thank our outgoing IM24CA Vice Chair, Americas, Duncan Stamper, for his 8 years of serving the class and outgoing Member Americas, Krak Arntson for his 6 years of contributions to our success!
I’d like to welcome Chelsea Simms as our Vice Chair, Americas and Scot Zimmerman as our Member Americas.
Thank you to all the sailors, regatta officials, sailing clubs, volunteers, and the entire Melges 24 family for making 2022 a memorable year of sailing worldwide!
My best to all for safe and happy holidays!
Laura Grondin,
IM24CA Chair
IM24CA Executive Committee
IM24CA Technical Committee
IM24CA Staff
