Women only

Dates announced for the UK Women’s Open Keelboat Championship

Hot on the heels of the sensational performances of Sam Davies and Dee Caffari in the Vendée Globe round the world yacht race, the organisers of the Women’s Open Keelboat Championship 2009 are excited to announce confirmation of this year’s event. It will be held on 4-5 July.

WOKC 2009 follows the success of the inaugural Championship in 2008, where over 150 women raced for the now coveted WOKC trophy.

The event will again be hosted by Royal Southern Yacht Club, Hamble, with two days’ racing taking place in the challenging waters of the Solent. This will be supported by another fabulous shore-side ‘frocks and flips-flops’ party.

With a hard winter nearly behind us, the WOKC team are looking forward to a long hot summer. Building on the success of the Championship in 2008, the organisers are aiming to bring even more women from across the UK, Europe and further afield together for some serious racing and a lot of fun.

Jody Slater, one of the team behind the event, said: “We were overwhelmed with the support and great feedback from last year’s event and following the amazing performances of Sam and Dee, we are keener than ever to promote an event that sees women sailing competitively in one of the world’s most famous sailing venues. We still aim to accommodate a range of experience and age groups across key one design and handicap fleets. As we proved last year the event provides a format which is not available elsewhere in the UK racing calendar. We all had such a good time racing last summer, we just had to do this again!”

She followed, “This year we are working with some of the key fleets and charter companies to try and improve the quality of racing further, whilst also making the event accessible to more ladies. We’re expecting to see participants from Europe and the United States, as well as some of our local stars”.

The Women’s Open Keelboat Championship is being hosted by the Royal Southern Yacht Club, Hamble, on the weekend of 4-5 July 2009, with two days of racing run by a highly experienced team, and a great Saturday night party.