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Festival Of Sails

RGYC to host Australia’s 1st Viper World Championships

The Royal Geelong Yacht Club is set to host another world title event – the Viper World Championships in January 2017.

The ISAF One Design Viper World Championships will be held from January 7th – 15th 2017 and will be a major lead-in event for Australia’s premier sailing regatta, the Festival of Sails.

It’s the first time the Viper World Championships will be staged in Australia after the inaugural event was held in Erquy, on the north coast of Brittany in France last year.

Spectators can expect to see some exciting racing with plans to keep the sailing course as close to the beach as possible. The Australian designed Viper is a high performance racing multihull that is built for speed and spectacular sailing. The Viper can reach speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour.

It’s hoped the world championships will attract up to 70 boats from Europe, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, double the previous world championship numbers.

The 2017 Viper World Championships will kick off the sailing action on Corio Bay ahead of the 2017 Festival of Sails. The dates for the 2017 event have been set with the historic passage race from Melbourne to Geelong on Thursday 26th of January, with the remainder of the race days from Friday 27th – Sunday 29th of January.