Ten Places at the 2021 eSailing World Championship Final Have Been Decided

20th October 2021

21 countries were represented in the PlayOffs, and the 2021 Finalists include players from Portugal, Greece and Japan for the first time

The nine-month season has come to an end, concluding with the eSailing World Championship PlayOffs which took place this weekend (1st – 4th October), and the eSailGP Grand Finale. The ten places at the Live Final have now been decided!

Four spots were awarded automatically through some of the top events in the season. The America’s Cup Champion from Italy Rocco Guerra (MCES rock) secured his spot early on in the year in March and the inaugural Olympic Virtual Series winner decided one spot that was taken by Tristan Peron (UOL asere) of France in June. When the eSailing World Championship rankings ended in September, the top of the leader board Arthur Farley (VIT Arthur Farley) from Britain secured his seat at the final. The eSailGP Final on the 15th October was the last automatic qualification spot up for grabs which was snatched by Mike O’Donovan (Deja Vu) from GBR.

Arthur Farley from GBR is looking forward to the final and commented that he is "really happy to have won my spot in the eSailing World Championship Final after being ranked number 1 player in the world rankings 2021. Lots of races and time but it all paid off! My focus is now on eSailGP grand final, eSailing Nations cup and the final!"

That left the 747 players in the eSailing World Championship PlayOffs to compete for the remaining six places in the ten-player final, scheduled to take place live on 6 November. 1982 races took place throughout the PlayOffs, with each player doing an average distance of 1220 nautical miles! The PlayOffs were raced in the 49er in the virtual waters of San Francisco, the Nacra 17 in Sydney and the J/70 in Rio de Janeiro.

21 countries were represented in the PlayOffs, and the 2021 Finalists include players from Portugal, Greece and Japan for the first time.

Francisco Melo (Chico), representing Portugal in the eSailing World Championship after coming 1st in the PlayOffs, and also currently part of team Portugal in the eSailing Nations Cup tournament said it was "Very tough racing with always 2/3 top players in the race, not an easy course, a lot of shifts but feeling very comfortable in J70 and manage to qualify! Didn’t sailed as much in some of the other boats (49er and Nacra 17 ). Now into finals!"

Greece’s Yannis Kokonias (Grr-9), proudly becoming the first Greek eSailor to take a place in the final said "Everything was judged in only 1-2 races in a series of 20, I am satisfied that I reached my target of qualifying with the fewest races and playing fair to everyone as I try to do in all season."

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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.