2023 12mR World Championship scheduled to take place 31 July to 5 August.
The 2023 12mR World Championship organized by the 12 Metre Yacht Club Newport Station – the official home of ITMA’s Americas 12mR fleet – will take place on Narragansett Bay and Rhode Island Sound in partnership with Organizing Authority Ida Lewis Yacht Club.
This venue last hosted the 12mR Worlds in 2019, and previously these awe-inspiring sailboats competed there for a chance to become a contender in the 1958 and 1983 America’s Cup events.
The most recent 12mR World Championship was held in 2021 in Helsinki, Finland.
Prior to the 2023 Worlds, the 12mR fleet will be busy racing a full schedule of regattas and practices out of Newport, including two class-sanctioned regattas . . . the New York Yacht Club Annual Regatta, 9 to 11 June, and the Sail Newport Regatta 7 to 9 July 7-9 which will serve as the 12 Metre Pre-Worlds event.
The 12mtr fleet will be divided into four divisions — Modern, Traditional, Vintage, and ‘Spirit of Tradition’ — with a healthy representation expected in each.
And will Include returning 2019 World Champions Columbia (US-16, Traditional Division) and Challenge XII (KA-10, Modern Division).
Other teams expected to compete include American Eagle (US-21), Courageous (US-26), Defender (US-33), Enterprise (US-27), Freedom (US-30), Gleam (US-11), Intrepid (US-22), Nefertiti (US-19), Onawa (US-6) and Weatherly (US-17).
Weatherly’s owner/skipper Steve Eddleston, Commodore of the 12 Metre Yacht Club Newport Station, commented . . .
“To paraphrase John F. Kennedy from 60 years ago when he spoke in Newport about the America’s Cup duel between Weatherly and Gretel, ‘We are most certainly racing against each other, but we are also racing with each other against the wind and the sea.’ Nothing comes close to competing in a 12 Metre World event!”
The 112-year-old International 12 Metre Class encompasses a living history of racing yacht design by the world’s foremost naval architects including: Olin Stephens, Clinton Crane, William Fife III, Philip Rhodes, Johan Anker, Ben Lexcen and more who pushed their designs to the very limits of innovations.
The resulting boats represented the pinnacle of yacht development from 1907-1987 for the highest levels of international sailing competition.
The class featured in the Olympic Games 1908-1920 and the America’s Cup from 1958 to 1987.
