Sailing event management company, OC Events, and creators of the Extreme 40 Class, TornadoSport, have officially joined forces to take this new and exciting Class forward in to 2007 and beyond.

Their collaboration is underpinned by the creation of a series of regattas in Europe, to be managed by OC Events. Existing Extreme 40 teams have already confirmed their participation in the series, including Holmatro, Team Basilica and Conrad Humphreys Racing.

The Extreme 40 was designed by Yves Loday, in collaboration with Mitch Booth and at 40ft loa, this lightweight carbonfibre catamaran has already shown its ability to provide exciting sailing. The class made its debut in the 2005/06 Volvo Ocean Race competing at a number of stopovers around the world. After 70 races, in five different countries, it was two times Olympic Silver medallist Randy Smyth from America who finally clinched the inaugural series, ahead of Team Basilica.

Now the Extreme 40 Class, under the mantle of OC Events and TornadoSport, is all set to move forward into a new era. Mark Turner OC Group CEO commented: “We recognised early on the appeal of the Extreme 40 Class for the sailor, sponsor and the media and we wanted to be part of this new sailing product in the future. We began discussions with TornadoSport over the summer and quickly established a basis to move forward with the creation of a series of events in Europe in 2007. We are making a long-term investment in the Extreme 40 Class and the 2007 circuit will be backed by some key commercial partners.”

TornadoSport expect a number of new boats to go into production in time for the 2007 season, and will confirm the size of this new production run in the coming days. A number of bids from European cities are already under consideration for the event venues – the inaugural tour is likely to include the UK, France, Italy, Holland and Germany.