An initiative to help bring yacht racing more closely in touch with Europe’s highest sports sponsorship spenders will be launched at a new event called the World Yacht Racing Forum to be held in Monaco on 10 and 11 December, 2008.

Personnel from the world’s best known sailing events and regattas, racing teams, race management and those who run key venues will be invited to a series of presentations and case studies which will form the focal point of a powerful net working exercise designed to improve racing’s connection with big sponsorship decision makers.

Hosted by the Informa Yacht Group, part of Informa plc, one of the world’s largest conference and event organisers, the Forum aims to capitalise on the multi-billion dollar yacht racing industry which is currently ranked as third highest recipient of European sports sponsorship.

At the Collins Stewart London Boat Show Informa personnel were sounding out leading players in yacht racing from the America’s Cup and the VOR to Skandia Cowes Week, the Olympics, World Match Racing sailors and specialist yachting commentators.

They told Yachting World that the idea for the forum had come from competing yachtsmen and women and regatta organisers who believe there could be much more achieved by bringing interested parties together to share ideas and to benefit from direct contact with potential sponsors. “Sailing is a great sport, but the world of yacht racing needs a forum of this nature to debate and discuss the key issues that will raise its global awareness,” says top sailor Ian Walker on the forum’s website.

Informa are running the World Yacht Race Forum in conjunction with the Motorsport Business Forum which in the last four years has been successful in providing a specialist networking platform for people in that industry. The event will also include the first World Yacht Racing Industry Awards recognising ‘the best regattas and venues, the unsung heroes of yacht racing, the teams and individuals who work behind the scenes plus the sailing teams and skippers who have excelled in 2008’.
Check out www.worldyachtracingforum.com for detail and registration.