Foiling Week is a name that represents much more than just foiling racing. In 2019 we have reached the “ten events” milestone (six in Malcesine, two in Sydney, one in Newport and one in Miami): we are busy as usual with planning events, activities and initiatives.
What is Foiling Week? What have we done so far and where are we heading?
Foiling Week is a no-profit sport and cultural association whose scope is to promote foiling and make it more safe, accessible and sustainable. In other words, the aim is to provide the foiling community with the network and resources to grow within the sport of sailing. Foiling and Foiling Week have grown indeed, with the help and for the benefit of the foiling community as a whole.
We aim at CONNECTING people, encourage COOPERATION, drive CHANGE.
We do connect, cooperate and change through events and initiatives.
Among the initiatives and activities devised over the years we are proud in particular of these:
INFORMATION: we publish daily foiling news on our social platforms. The average monthly reach is 250K. This means foiling news are spread well beyond the foiling community, getting major traction with the larger general sailing community.
SAFETY: launch of the first medical research on foiling related traumas in cooperation with the Society of Outdoor Sports & Performance Medicine. The scope is to discover how foiling sailors get injured, understand how to best prevent the injuries through specific protections and design improvements.
ACCESSIBILITY: trials open to the public since 2014, specific trials for kids since 2015, specific trials fro women since 2016 in cooperation with The Magenta Project), learn to fly courses for beginners since 2017 ( in cooperation with Andrew Simpson Watersports Centres ), coaching for participating classes in cooperation with OLY sailors since 2018. Over 500 people have tried foiling for the first time at a Foiling Week event, But one of our boldest project is PROJECT SAS, a foiling boat accessible to disabled sailors that il designed by Guillame Verdier. Project is ongoing with active fundraising activities.
SUSTAINABILITY: single-use plastic banned at all events since the 2014 use of electric boats for media and spectators since 2016, the launch of the successful online petition in 2019 to ban single-use plastics from all lake Garda shores.
CONFERENCES: over 200 speakers from all foiling backgrounds have presented topics at FW events, over 20 projects were announced as world first at the event.
EDUCATION and RESEARCH: devise and launch in 2019 of SuMoth ( Sustainable Moth ) challenge, a competition to design, build and sail a sustainably built International Moth open to naval architecture faculties around the globe. Devise and launch of the 2019 Mpef ( Multi-Purpose Electric Foiler ) competition open to professional naval architects and engineers.
While many new initiatives are being developed, two, in particular, are coming together in 2020 and will potentially contribute to a quantum leap acceleration in the networking and business capacity of the community. One initiative will bring the community closer to the composites industry as a whole, generating connections and business possibilities in an area familiar to the majority of the foiling community. The other will open doors to the greater high-tech world, with larger investments and corporations becoming connected.
News will, of course, follow soon on these two topics…
So…we want to hear from you out there, reader, fan, supporter, sailor, builder, designer, stakeholder, partner. Let us know how we can help further, let’s hear suggestions and comments. We are open. We are foiling. We are foiling week.
A big thanks to all team members, our partners and sponsors. Slam Gurit Marlow Ropes Torqeedo 11th Hour Racing GAC Pindar Persico Marine Polynt SAILMON
2020 here we come! Foiling Awards will be in Milan February 20th. Foiling Week Malcesine will be at Fraglia Vela Malcesine from June 24th to 28th.
