USA Selected for 2018 I-420 World Championships

The United States International 420 Class Association, at the Annual General Assembly meeting of the International 420 Class Association held July 16 prior to the Class World Championships (July 18-23) in San Remo, Italy, presented a bid to the Member National Authorities of the Class to host the 2018 World Championship Regattas in Newport, Rhode Island.

The presentation was a joint effort of the US I-420 Class Association Board and Sail Newport, the latter being the highly successful Rhode Island Public Sailing Center – headed by Executive Director, Brad Read and Regatta Director, Kim Cooper. Sail Newport Facilities are located in Fort Adams State Park on the shore of famous Newport Bay.

The more than 25 Member National Authorities from around the World in attendance at this year’s I-420 World Championship Regattas in San Remo voted unanimously to approve the United States as the host for the 2018 Championship Regattas. The competition will take place from the 8th to the 15th of August, 2018 – right on the heels of Sail Newport hosting the Volvo Ocean Race Fleet for their American stop-over.

This year’s World Championship Regattas for the I-420 Open/Men’s Class; Women’s Class and the new Under 17 Classes (U17) in the Open/Men’s and Women’s Classes set an an all-time record for entries:

420 Open – 110 teams from 22 nations
420 Ladies – 84 teams from 21 nations
420 U17 – 68 entries from 18 nations

The last time that the I-420 World Championships were hosted in the United States was in 1997…that year it was also sailed in Newport, Rhode Island.

Preceding the 2018 event in USA will be the 2017 420 World Championships on December 15-23 in Fremantle, Australia. The Worlds will be preceded by a warm-up pre-event, the Australian 420 Nationals on December 11-14, 2017.

The International 420 Class (the original 420 design, 4.2 meter, double-handed high performance dinghy) has been in existence since the late 1960’s and was very active in the US for decades. The United States I-420 Class became in-active in the late 1990’s at which point in 2000 Tim Hogan (from CISA), Jerelyn Biehl, Brent Boyd, Lori Tabor (all from San Diego), and Larry Law (NBSSA) reorganized the I-420 Class in the US and began training in the US to again send talented sailors to the European events.

Today the US Class enjoys a very talented and highly successful field of younger sailors that compete in many regional and national competitions, as well as sending championship teams (Team USA) to 4 or 5 major international events every year.

Source: United States International 420 Class Association