A whole summer of sailing is cancelled due to COVID-19
BOAT SHOWS, RACES, CLUB EVENTS AND RALLIES ALIKE ALL CANCELLED DUE TO COVID-19
Cancelled or postponed – almost every sailing event this summer has been shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic. From local club events to the America’s Cup World Series, and everything in between including organised regattas and cruises – even the Olympics – has been called off.
One by one, organisers faced the inevitable and binned months and, in some cases, years of planning to stand events down. Club racing at every level was abandoned in March and boat shows were cancelled. The cancellation of events including the TP52 Super Series, Sailgp, Antigua Sailing Week,
ARC Portugal and many others meant boat owners and organisers had to leave their yachts in places they were no longer able to visit, and pro sailors to face an indeterminate period out of work.
The Clipper Round the World Race was forced to a stop and crew had to fly home, but not before a nervous time spent in quarantine at the stop in Subic Bay, Philippines, as borders there and elsewhere began to close and airlines ceased flying. Initially, race organisers decided to skip the planned stop in Qingdao in China and divert to Subic
Bay before starting the long Pacific leg to Seattle, but as the global situation worsened it soon became clear that entering the US would be impossible. This forced Clipper Ventures to postpone the race immediately and put off the remaining legs for ten months until 2021.
This, however, has a knock-on effect on the planned Clipper Race after this one, which would have been due to start in summer 2021, but will now start in the summer of 2022.
All upcoming boat shows have been cancelled. HISWA Amsterdam Boat
Show in March ran for only one day before prematurely being closed. April’s International Multihull Show at La Grand Motte, France, has been cancelled, as have other smaller shows and charter shows this spring and summer.
The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were among the last big events to be postponed when a decision was finally made on 24 March to reschedule these to 2021. The British Sailing Team had already announced it had ‘ceased all organised on-water training’.
Mark Robinson, RYA Olympic performance manager, said: “It is obviously hugely disappointing for our athletes and staff who have devoted the last four years and often much longer to their dream… However, we believe the decision to delay the Games is the right one. A delay will also ensure that competition remains fair.”