Sail Pensacola, a local organization, is hosting the North American expansion of Foiling Week to the United States on the stage of Pensacola, Florida. This will be the biggest sailing regatta we have seen. It will go from February 24 through March 2, 2025.
Foiling Week is a sailing event that celebrates foiling boats and the future of watercraft mobility. For comparison, it is the equivalent of a grand slam or national championship in other sports. Tim Ryschon, the president and founder of Sail Pensacola exclaimed that the thing he is most excited for is “the energy cloud of an incredible range of high-performance sailors all having the opportunity to sail in the best sailing conditions they could ask for.”
Since 2014, Foiling Week has been held in Lake Garda, Italy, for the annual event. Dr. Ryschon and Luca Rizzotti, the founders of Foiling Week, have been in communication collaborating with their organizations to create this massive event taking place in early 2025. Mr. Rizzotti added that “As this event will still take place in Italy in following years, we’re super excited to use this transition to the Northern American continent as a representation of our expansion.”
Foiling Week attracts all the best world-class sailors around the world racing on the most sophisticated and high-speed sailing boats and boards in the world.
Dr. Ryschon, who is also the event chairman, has been meticulously planning this event since 2023. Having this role means “having daily communication with the range of stakeholders.” The stakeholders would be “the City of Pensacola, Santa Rosa Island Authority, local hotels, and theaters that would be vital in a wide range of social activities off the water for the sailors and spectators,” Dr. Ryschon added.
Not only will Foiling Week offer an entire week of world-class sailing, but this event will additionally offer an immense number of activities for the spectators. Everyone is invited to Foiling Week free of charge. They will offer free demos of boats and boards, film festivals, race village dining and shopping, DJ and band sessions, symposia, and VIP race observation trips with commentary on the Pensacola ferries.
Sail Pensacola was founded in February of 2023. It was invented as a “Maritime Business Ecosystem Orchestrator,” says Dr. Ryschon. Since then, it has inspired sailors around the world and assisted with marketing of existing sail-aligned businesses to ensure they are discovered. American Magic, which is the sailing team that represents the United States, has endorsed the Pensacola Bay as a prime year-round sailing venue for high-performance boats.
In addition to hosting Foiling Week, Sail Pensacola has objectives of its own too, to hopefully continue to highlight the Pensacola area as a prime sailing entity. Dr. Ryschon says they have three goals that go according to their vision: “make sailors, make races, and make jobs.” Bettering the Pensacola area is what Sail Pensacola is all about.
As Sail Pensacola and Foiling Week have been working together, they have gained a shared vision and goal. “Our vision is for Pensacola to be the high-performance technology center of the U.S.,” adds Rizzotti. Additionally, their hopes are that Foiling Week will make Pensacola the epicenter of high-performance sailing and marine technology in North America, while facilitating greater access to sailing and coordinating of national and international competition.
As Foiling Week nears, Ryschon and Rizzotti are teaming to perfect the plan with a detailed logistics plan, a coalition of energized stakeholders, and a media plan that reaches around the world to make “Pensacola the Foiling Week you can’t resist,” exclaimed Dr. Ryschon.
Together, they are excited to offer an event that world class sailors and the public both endorse as fun, informative, and well-worth their travel, making it a perpetual annual event on personal and commercial calendars for the next twenty years.
