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Displaying items by tag: World Sailing Awards

The Ocean Race 2022-23-winning 11th Hour Racing was named Team of the Year at the World Sailing Awards ceremony in Málaga, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

And skipper Charlie Enright was on hand to pick up the prize on Tuesday evening (14 November).

From January to July of this year, Enright led his 11th Hour Racing Team to a come-from-behind victory in The Ocean Race, demonstrating remarkable resilience and fortitude over the toughest fully crewed offshore race in the world.

For Enright, the victory was truly a team effort. “Winning this race has been such an achievement for the entire team,” he told the crowd at a homecoming event in Newport, Rhode Island this past summer.

“We went through the first half of the race not winning a leg and then...we won Leg 4 into our hometown of Newport. This was a turning point for us in the race and the momentum stayed with us right through to the final victory.”

Among the other deserving winners on the evening, were The Magenta Project, which was recognised with the World Sailing 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award.

The Magenta Project was born out of the Team SCA campaign in the 2014-15 edition of The Ocean Race and advocates for gender diversity across the sailing industry through mentoring, events and governance.

Published in Ocean Race

Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.