SSL Finals 2017: 100 Days to Go

Lausanne, Switzerland (August 24th, 2017) – There are a little more than 100 days to the Star Sailors League (SSL) Finals 2017 in Nassau Bahamas, from December 4th to 9th, and just a few regattas that can give points and change the top 10 skippers of the SSL Rankings until September 12th, when the leaders for 2017 will be definite.

The plan for the fifth edition of the most important event for the Star Sailors League will follow the path of the previous SSL Finals, with four days of Qualification Series after which the top 10 teams will go ahead to the final knock-out stage of the competition.

The first qualified team will get a bye to the Final, the runner-up will go to the semi-finals and teams from 3rd to 10th will have to fight on yet one more race in the quarter-finals. All of this action will happen on the last day of competition, on Saturday December 9th, and in the late afternoon the winners of the SSL Finals 2017 will be crowned directly after racing at Nassau Yacht Club.

To access to SSL Finals you can either be among the top 10 sailors in the SSL Rankings, be the first crew, a young talented sailor, a VIP invited for your achievements in your career or the ISCYRA World Champion. Norwegian Eivind Melleby with American Joshua Revkin won the Star World Championship in July in Denmark and so owned the right to have a spot in Nassau: Melleby and Revkin are the first SSL Finalists to confirm their participation to the fifth edition of the SSL Finals.

Josh Revkin raced at every single SSL event since 2013, be it the four previous SSL Finals or the Grand Slams; Eivind Melleby was at two SSL Finals and with Josh finished second at the SSL City Grand Slam in Hamburg in 2016. The team has good vibes and works well together, we can expect great things from them in Nassau, particularly if it’s a windy year in Montagu Bay, they seem to like strong breeze like those almost stormy days in Svendborg at the Star Worlds 2017.

The updated SSL Finals website is online now, with the schedule of the weeks’ sport, media and social events at Nassau Yacht Club. The Opening Ceremony is confirmed to take place on Monday December 4th late afternoon, details haven’t been formalized yet but a cocktail party will surely follow. The Medal Ceremony will be held right after sailing on Saturday December 9th, on a big podium in Montagu Beach and that evening there will be the Gala Dinner with Price Giving Ceremony at Nassau Yacht Club.

Event Details – Results – FaceBook

About the Star Sailors League (SSL)
From the initiative of some of the world’s best sailors, the Star Sailors League (SSL), launched an international circuit of regattas in January 2013. This new league has been built on the existing circuit of over 220 International Star regattas around the world, using a unified world ranking, created based on the ATP World Tour ™, established by tennis players in 1972. Drawing on this inspiration from tennis, the SSL also awards substantial prize money to the best-ranked sailors.

By 2020, the objective of the SSL is to organize four Grand Slams and the SSL Finals every year. The annual SSL Finals is exclusive to the top athletes and the Grand Slams will offer fierce competition. In order to create a world-ranking representative of the skills of each athlete and to balance the odds for each one of them, the Grand Slams will take place at venues known for different conditions:

• “SSL LAKE GS” organized on a lake
• “SSL BAY GS” organized in a sea bay
• “SSL CITY GS” organized in an urban environment
• “SSL BREEZE GS” organized on a windy area

In September 2015, the SSL organized the first Lake Grand Slam, on lake Neuchâtel in Switzerland, hosted by the Cercle de Voile de Grandson, and in May 2016 the first City Grand Slam took place in Hamburg, Germany, by Norddeutscher Regatta Verein and Hamburger and Luebeck Bay Star Boat fleets. In March 2017 with a partnership with Bacardi Cup, SSL tested what one day will be the Sea Grand Slam, a regatta following the traditional Star Class regulations. On the first week of December 2017 the 5th SSL Finals will be held in Nassau Bahamas at Nassau Yacht Club.

Source: SSL Media and Communication