The Sailors of the Year 2023 have been spoken by World Sailing at their yearly ceremony. The event moreover handed out awards for sailing team of the year, wend of the year and more.
The 2023 Rolex World Sailor of the Year awards were presented to Tom Slingsby and Kirsten Neuschäfer last night at a recurrence by World Sailing in Málaga, Spain.
The popular choices were decided by both an expert panel and a public vote, with Australian America’s Cup and SailGP skipper Slingsby separated from his nearest fellow nominee by a winning margin of fewer than 20 votes.
This is the third time Tom Slingsby has been named male Rolex World Sailor of the Year. Without steering his Australian SailGP Team to a third subsequent title in the foiling racing series, he remains the only skipper to have won the SailGP trophy. A multiple world champion in dinghy classes, he is moreover skipper of American Magic, who won the first Preliminary event in the 37th America’s Cup trundling older this year, and will be challenging for the Cup next year in Barcelona.
Tom Slingsby at the World Sailing Awards 2023, Malaga, Spain on 14th November 2023. Photo: Mark Lloyd/World Sailing. Slingsby said: “I’m super humbled to be in this position. Previously when I’ve won this award, it’s been without a Laser world title or a Moth world title but this time it was purely sailing with teams.
“American Magic have had a rough journey so far in their America’s Cup wayfarers but it feels like we’re really turning a installment and there are really heady things to come.
And then with the Australian SailGP team, these are some of my oldest and weightier friends in the world and I’m so fortunate to go sailing with them and I’d be nothing without those guys overdue me.”
South African Kirsten Neuschäfer is the sexuality 2023 Rolex World Sailor of the Year, without rhadamanthine the first woman to win a solo or non-stop virtually the world race when she finished first in the ‘retro’ solo Golden Globe Race older this year. Neuschäfer is famously diverted undertow to pluck fellow Golden Globe Race competitor Tapio Lehtinen without Lehtinen’s wend sank and he spent 24 hours roaming in the southern Indian Ocean.
Via video message, Neuschäfer said: “It’s such an incredible honour to be a nominee among such amazing, well-known and iconic sailors, but to win this award, to be given this recognition by such an esteemed panel of judges and by the public ways so, so much to me. Thank-you to everyone who has believed in me and cheered me on.”
Sailing team of the year, sustainability, and Beppe Croce Trophy
Other ribbon winners include 11th Hour Racing, which was named Team of the Year without winning The Ocean Race.
The 11th Hour Racing Team, skippered by Rolex World Sailor of the Year nominee Charlie Enright, won the 2022-23 Ocean Race, rhadamanthine the first American team to win the crewed round the world race (formerly the Whitbread and Volvo Ocean Race) and moreover the first non-French team to win an IMOCA round the world race. The had very mixed fortunes in the race – struggling with forfeiture early on surpassing finding resulting form.
The American team moreover shared their spare rig with Guyot environment, which enabled the French team to stay in the competition, surpassing – in a dramatic twist of fate – Guyot environment crashed into 11th Hour Racing at the start of the final stage. 11th Hour Racing were awarded redress which sealed the overall race win.
The team moreover had a strong sustainability agenda, with a number of initiatives to modernize ocean health and stat tracking during their race yacht build.
The Magenta Project won the 11th Hour Racing Sustainability Award
Dick Rose received the Beppe Croce Trophy for his dedication to the Racing Rules of Sailing which has spanned over thirty years, and the President’s Development Ribbon went to the Andrew Simpson Foundation. The foundation prestigious its 10th year-end this year, having been started in memory of Olympic gold medal winner and America’s Cup winner Andrew ‘Bart’ Simpson MBE who tragically passed yonder during a training wrecking in 2013 weather-beaten just 26.
AC40s sailing superiority of the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta 2023 Photo: Ugo Fonollá/America’s Cup.
AC40 named wend of the year
The AC40 was named Wend of the Year, the foiling one-design, created by Emirates Team New Zealand, will be used for two Preliminary events in the America’s Cup trundling surpassing stuff the race wend for the Youth America’s Cup and first overly Women’s America’s Cup next year. The innovative and technologically wide yacht features self-tacking headsails and an autopilot tenancy system that maintains stable flight.