By Steve Stroebel, Int. F18 Class Vice-President
Following are the participation statistics from the 2025 F18 World Championship held in Noordwijk, Netherlands, from July 7-11, 2025, with 96 boats and 192 competitors representing 17 countries.
This was almost the same number of boats at the 2023 Worlds in Travemünde, Germany (97) (also a Northern Europe venue) but down from the 131 boats at the more popular Worlds location in Spain.
Though a lot of data is shown below, the other important factors that result in good performance at a World Championships are not reflected in this data. These factors are racing experience, time on the water, good teamwork, good tactics, mental acuity, boat preparation, and many other factors.
Measurement data under .xlsx format available here.
Table of content
- Attendence
- Equipment
- Boats
- Sails – Mainsails – Spinnakers
- Self Certification
- GPS
- VHF
- Competitors profile
- Gender
- Age
- Categories
- Weight
- Under 150 kg teams
- Winning Nations
- Hosting NCAs
Attendence
- 32% of the competitors were sailing in an F18 Worlds for the first time, up from 27% in Spain last year.
- We had many former F18 champions racing at Noordwijk making this one of the most competitive Worlds:
- Five helms who won ten F18 World Championships
- Three crews who won F18 Worlds with one now competing as a helm
- Three helms and one crew who won F18 European Championships
- We had slightly better youth participation than the previous two worlds.
- For U26 (under 26 years old) it was 19% vs 17%/18% the previous years
- For U23 (under 23 years old) it was 14% vs 10%/12% the previous years
- The country delegations with the most depth based on number of boats in the top 25 and finishes were:
- Australia 6 boats & top 4 places!
- France 3 boats with median finish of 10th
- Spain 2 boats with median finish of 9th
- And Australia increases their championship total to seven with Darren Bundock, the current champion having won six of them. Only Netherlands has won more Worlds with credit for eight championships.
- Australia was the 2nd best represented continent (after Europe) in the 2024 and 2025 Worlds.
- South America typically has strong delegations from Argentina.
Equipment
Boats
- Five different boat builders in the top 7 boats – you can do well racing any of these designs!
- All the boats in the top 25 were built between 2021-2025.
- 7 (15%) of the gold fleet were boats built 2020 or earlier.
- 23 (48%) of silver fleet were boats built 2020 or newer which shows that a new boat does not get you into the gold fleet – experience and practice are the more important factors.
- 7 different boat builders represented in the fleet of which 5 are currently active building F18s.
- 5 different boat builders in the top 7 boats – you can do well racing any of these designs!
- 68% of the fleet had boats built since 2020; 31% boats older than 2020.
- The oldest boat racing was 19 years old which was in the Silver Fleet but one boat 17 years old raced in the Gold Fleet.
- All the top 10 boats were 2024 or 2025 models except one from 2021 who placed 2nd.
- Average age of boats across total fleet: 4.5 years old (2020 build year or newer)
- Median age for boats in the Gold Fleet was 1 year but for the Silver Fleet was 6 years.
- New boats are defined as build year same as Worlds and one year earlier per hull ID number. I changed the range because there could be boats built in second half of 2024 that are “new” boats to the Worlds this year. I used the same definition for the two previous Worlds.
- The Spain Worlds had a lower percent of new boats because many club sailors with older boats participated.
- 35% of the fleet had new boats (2025 & 2024 build years)
Next tables include comparison of 2025 Worlds with the two previous Worlds for the boat weight as measured at Noordwijk to determine amount of corrector weights.
- 15 boats (16% of the fleet) weighed below 180 kg so had to carry corrector weights to bring the boat to 180 kg.
- These boats also had to carry a red pennant from the lowest horizontal batten on their mainsail to show everyone that they had to carry corrector weight.
- The corrector weights were weighed by the technical committee during boat inspection.
- The presense of corrector weights on the dolphin striker was checked by the technical committee each racing day.
- The Silver Fleet carried on average less boat corrector weights because on average the fleet has older boats that gain weight over time.
- The top 2 finishers had boats at 174.8 kg and 177.8 kg but they carried corrector weights to bring their boats to the minimum 180 kg (red line on the chart).
- The 5th place team raced with a boat at 185.2 kg – 5.2 kg over the minimum.
- This data also shows that the heavier boats over 190 kg were in the Silver Fleet.
Sails
- 10 different sailmakers were represented in the fleet:
- 91% of mainsails were 4 sailmakers (Goodall, 1D, Performance & NextGen).
- Five mainsail sailmakers in the top ten: 1D with 1st and 2nd place and Goodall representing 40% of the top ten boats, Nacra Performance with 20% and NextGen Sails and Air Sails.
- 94% of spinnakers were 5 sailmakers (Goodall, 1D, Performance, NextGen & Kangaroo).
- Six spinnaker sailmakers were represented in the top 10: 1D with 1st and 2nd place and Goodall representing 30% of the top ten boats, Nacra Performance with 20% and NextGen, Air Sails and All Purpose Sails.
- You can also do well using any of these sails!
- The offer of a separate trophy for the top conventional mainsail brought out more legacy F18s with 8 competitors.
Mainsails
- 41% of the fleet had new mainsails (2025 build year).
- Median age of mainsails across total fleet: 1 year old (2024 build year).
- There was one mainsail from 2008 in the Gold Fleet at 43rd place.
- 74% of jibs were same year as mainsail but for:
- 13% were on average 2.3 years newer than the mainsail
- 14% were on average 1.5 years older than the mainsail
- There were 8 conventional mainsails which was more than the 2 last year because we encouraged sailors who have not changed to decksweepers to participate by offering a trophy for the top conventional sail F18.
- There were five different sailmakers in the top ten 1D with 1st and 2nd place and Goodall representing 40% of the top ten boats.
- All the boats in the top 10 used the brand of mainsail associated with the boat (e.g., 1D for Scorpions, Goodall for Akurra, Performance for Nacra , NextGen for Windrush, and Air Sails for Cirrus).
- 94% of jibs were same sailmaker as mainsail so did not produce a chart for jibs.
- For Goodall boats 100% used Goodall sails
- In the Gold Fleet for Nacra boats 88% used Performance Sails (Nacra’s sailmaking brand), for Scorpion boats 75% used 1D Sails and for Windrush 80% used NextGen sails.
Spinnakers
- 39% of the fleet had new spinnakers (2025 build year)
- 71% of the fleet had spinnakers made 2023 or newer
- In the Top Ten the oldest spinnaker was 2 years old (2023) while in the Top 25 the oldest was 4 years old (2021)
- Average age of spinnakers across total fleet: 2.4 years old (vs 2.5 years for mainsails)
- Median age: 1.0 years (same as mainsails)
- 44% of spinnakers were same year as mainsail but for:
- 26% were on average 2.6 years newer than the mainsail
- 30% were on average 1.7 years older than the mainsail
- The six sailmakers represented in the top 10 were used by 90% of the sailors.
- 10 different spinnaker sailmakers represented in fleet; down from 16 at Spain Worlds.
Self certification
The self-certification program using serialized certification stickers was implemented in 2023 for sails and 2024 for boats. The serialized certification stickers indicate that the sail or equipment is loaded into the on-line database on the IF18CA website.
- 70% of sails inspected had the new serialized stickers making the inspection process more efficient.
- 49% of boats had the new serialized stickers on their hulls.
- The boats that did not have the serialized stickers were still validated to be class legal using the non-serialized stickers or paper certificates.
GPS devices
The class rule change that allowed GPS devices on F18s was effective January 2024 and this is the first year which we asked competitors about the devices they carried for the competition:
- We surveyed the use of GPS devices for the first time and found the following:
- 90% of the top ten boats had a GPS device with 8 of them using Vakaros
- 76% of the Top 25 boats had a GPS device on board
- 63% of the Gold Fleet had a GPS device on board
- Vakaros has the largest market share with 24 boats using their device.
- Most of the sailors with Garmin watches said they do not use its capabilities on the water.
Here is the breakdown for the GPS devices by finish:
VHF
We also surveyed to determine which boats were carrying a VHF radio while racing and only 2 boats said “yes”. Next year we will survey to determine how many boats own VHF radios that they could take on their boats if the race committee was providing valuable information over the radio.
Competitors profile
- Since we had the data for both Worlds we were also able to compare each boat’s results between the 2024 and 2025 Worlds to determine who improved the most:
- 1st Most Improved GER 121 Gerrit Backman and Sandra Packert from 112th to 60th place
- 2nd Most Improved BEL 11 Win Van Acker and Stan Pattyn from 75th to 40th place
- 3rd Most Improved USA 3 Manu Boulogne and Matthieu Marfaing from 24th to 7th place sailing with the new Cirrus R3
- Almost 1/3 of the people were first time competitors at an F18 World Championship which was an increase from 27% last year in Spain.
Gender
- In 2025 we saw a good improvement in the percentage of women participating in the F18 Worlds especially for helms. We are awarding a new Women Helm Trophy annually which is having a good impact.
Age
- Median Age = age when ½ of competitors are older and ½ are younger
- The helm age distribution is almost identical to Travemunde Worlds in 2023 and Spain Worlds in 2024.
- Th crew median age increased by 3 years which shows there are more older crew but the average crew age remained about the same for the past 3 championships.
- Oldest helm (skipper) is Gerard Loos from NED at 72 years sailing in the Gold Fleet.
- A repeat from 2024, the oldest crew is Marius van Dam from NED at 69 years placing 16th in the Gold Fleet with his son as the helm.
- Youngest helm (17 years) is Sean Lemonnier sailing on IRL 167 in the Silver Fleet.
- Youngest crew (12 years) is Paula Zylka sailing on GER 143 with her father in the Silver Fleet.
- One of the most remarkable statistics is that there are 9 crew who are 60+ years with 4 of them sailing in the Gold Fleet.
For most of the following data we show results for the top 10 boats (10% of fleet), top 25 boats (26% of the fleet), gold fleet and silver fleet.
- Based on median age, the Top Ten crews are 4 years younger than the rest of the Gold Fleet.
- The silver fleet helms are older than the gold fleet by 6 years.
Categories
- The top two competitive categories are:
- “Youth Team” which is under age 26 with a 2nd place finish and average ranking of 37.
- “Family” with a 2nd place finish and median finish of 38. This category consisted of:
- 8 father/sons
- 5 father/daughters
- 5 brothers (one set twins)
- 4 brother/sister teams
- demonstrating that F18 racing is a family affair!
- Since we change our definition of youth for the 2025 Worlds, we have included the data for U26 and U23 for the past three Worlds. For 2023-24, youth is defined as under 23 years old. In 2025 is defined as under 26 years old.
- In 2025 we had better youth participation than the previous two world with either definition.
- 50% (3/6) of the German teams were mixed so they do the best job to attract women sailors.
- 16% (15) helms were 30 years old or younger; 39% (37) crews were < 30
Weight
- Over the past 3 years both helm and crew weight has trended downwards.
- As the teams have become lighter the number of boats and the amount of corrector weight has increased.
- One boat had their weight limited to 7.5 kg (Teams at Max in the above chart) under the trial rule setting 7.5 kg as the maximum otherwise they would have carried 11.2 kg. This team was in the silver fleet.
- The lightest team was a father/daugher combination at 127.7 kg in the Silver fleet; above the minimum total crew weight of 125 kg.
- For teams that had an approved competitor change, I used the weight of the person who sailed the most days. All competitors approved to be changed were weighed and the compensation weight requirement adjusted, if required.
- The red line is the minimum crew weight – 150 kg.
- This chart develop by Ad Noordzij shows that the best weight range was 155-160 kg.
- This chart was normalized to a 100 boat fleet.
- It also shows a fairly wide range of competitiveness from 140 – 165 kg.
Under 150 kg teams
Here is data on the teams that weighed under 150 KG and how they performed:
- There were 13 teams under 150 kg in the Gold fleet (27% of the fleet).
- The two light top 10 teams placed 7th with 149.8 kg and 10th with 144.7 kg.
- For the 140-150 kg teams, they did very well (8 out of 19 [42%] in the top 25.
- For the 125-140 kg teams, 7 out 8 (88%) were in the Silver Fleet.
- 13 teams had their compensation weight eliminated because their boats were greater than 180 kg.
- 25 teams had some reduction in the compensation weight because their boat was greater than 180 kg.
The amount varied from .35 kg to 13.8 kg with the median of 2.05 kg and average of 3.3 kg.
Of these boats that benefited from this adjustment:- 2 Top Ten Boats
- 8 Top 25 Boats
- 11 Gold Fleet Boats
- 14 Silver Fleet Boats
- If we were operating under the previous class rules for compensation (.5 kg for every 1 kg under with no maximum nor compensation for boats over 180 kg):
- Number of boats required to carry compensation weight would have been 27 vs 14.
- Median compensation weight would have been 2.7 kg.
Winning Nations
Australia increases their championship total to seven with Darren Bundock, the current champion having won six of them.
Hosting NCAs
Here is by country the distribution of F18 World Championship hosts including the 2026 championship to be sailed in Australia.
Have your country added to this list by bidding to host a World Championship.
