World Sailing to Move to London

Published on January 31st, 2017

(January 31, 2017) – World Sailing’s headquarters will relocate from Southampton to central London, UK in late summer 2017.

The selection of London as the new home for the International Federation comes after an extensive evaluation process of possible locations undertaken since the election of a new President and Board of Directors in November 2016.

The criteria for the evaluation included:
• International city
• Connectivity / ease of access for World Sailing members and stakeholders
• Ability to retain existing staff
• International diversity with a high quality, multilingual employment base

World Sailing evaluated Southampton, Geneva, Lausanne, London, Winchester, Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia.

Southampton, London, Barcelona and Winchester were shortlisted by World Sailing’s Board of Directors in December 2016 before today’s announcement of London.

An office location in central London is to be identified with a target move date of late summer 2017. The lease in Southampton expires September 2017.

World Sailing has been based in Southampton for the past 20-years but the organisations roots, and its predecessors, the IYRU and ISAF, had been based in London since its formation in 1907.

Kim Andersen, World Sailing President commented, “As with all good leadership, the board and myself have looked into what is best for the World Sailing organization and for our sport.

“We have taken into consideration the DNA of World Sailing as a whole, the technical skills we need to run the organisation, the aspect of being international and having options of multi-lingual competencies and accessibility.

“This has been weighed and reviewed, and we are pleased to announce that in the best interest of the organization and the sport we have decided to move the headquarters to London.”

World Sailing Chief Executive Officer Andy Hunt added, “World Sailing received strong interest from cities wanting to host the International Federation headquarters. Each city put forward a strong proposal and I thank them for their proposals and Southampton for hosting the governing body for the last two decades.”

Source: World Sailing, Scuttlebutt