Optimist World Championship To See A Large Turnout

Optimist World Championship 2017 is expected to have a record-breaking participation.


It is anticipated that the event will see the participation of 280 sailors from 62 nations. Theevent is scheduled from July 11th to 21st at the Royal Varuna Yacht Club in Pattaya, Thailand.

Thomas Whitcraft, The President of the Optimist World Championship 2017 said that the event will be a record–breaker with the huge number of sailors competing and a number of countries participating. This year’s event is remarkable with many Asian countries taking part after several years of absence. The Asian countries represented will include China, Taiwan, Macau, Indonesia, Myanmar, UAE, and India. The teams from the South American Continent will include Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Ecuador, and Uruguay.

The Optimist World Championship will include two titles the Optimist Individual World Championship (IWC) And the Optimist Team Racing World Championship (TRWC).

Whitcraft said that it is exciting to see the young sailors from Thailand competing with the best sailors
that the world has to offer. The participants from Thai include Intira Parnpiboon, SaranwongPoonpat, Panwa Boonnak, Jed taveeYongyuennarn and Paliga Poonpat.

The racing field for the championship is located between Koh Larn and mainland near the Yacht Club in
the Gulf of Thailand. Usually, the dinghy sailors of Optimist start at the age of 7-8 years. Most of the sailors participated in the sailing events in Rio Olympics have experience in Optimist dinghies when they were at a young age.

The test event for the Optimist World Championship was held in April this year. In the test event, Duncan
Gregor of Hong Kong took first place in the individual event in the Songkran International Regatta. Muhammad Daniel Kei, representing Singapore and Muhammad Khaidir Bin Mohd Zahawi from Malaysia took the second and third place respectively.

Sailing enthusiasts are looking forward to a great week of sailing in July at Thailand.