2024 F18 World Championship Ballena Allegre Spain Statistics

By Steve Stroebel, IF18CA Vice-President & US F18 Chair

Measurement data used to produce these statistics are available in both .pdf and .xlsx formats

General

Following are the participation statistics from the 2024 F18 World Championship held in Ballena Allegre, Spain from July 1-5, 2024 with 131 boats and 262 competitors representing 23 countries and 5 continents.

Last year at Travemunde we had 97 boats representing 19 countries so the class is advancing very nicely with the best showing since before Covid. Key points to take away from this data are:

• 27% of the competitors were sailing in an F18 Worlds for the first time.
• The top three boats were 2 or 3 years old.Five different boat manufacturers were represented in the top 20% of the fleet.
• All the boats in the top 25 were built between 2021-2024 probably because the top sailors cycle through new boats.
• 17 (26%) of the gold fleet were boats built 2019 or earlier.
• 27 (42%) of the silver fleet were boats built 2020 or newer which shows that having a new boat does not get you into the gold fleet – experience and practice are the more important factors.
• 17 different sailmakers were represented in the fleet but:
  • 85% of mainsails were 4 sailmakers (Goodall, 1D, Performance & NextGen).
  • 80% of spinnakers were 5 sailmakers (Goodall, 1D, Performance, NextGen & Kangaroo).

Competitors by Continent

Competitors previous attendance

Competitor Age Distribution

• Median Age = age when ½ of competitors are older and ½ are younger
• The age distribution is almost identical to Travemünde Worlds in 2023.
• One of the most remarkable statistics is that there are 7 crew who are 60 years or older with the oldest at 67.
• Oldest helm (skipper) is Willie van der Heijden from NED.
• Oldest crew is Marius van Dam from NED showing how hardy the Dutch are always sailing the North Sea.
• Youngest crew (15 years) is Daniel Perez sailing on ESP 2080 with his father.

For most of the following data we show results for the top 10 boats (7.6% of fleet) that received a trophy, top 25 boats (19% of the fleet), gold fleet and silver fleet.

Competitor Age by Result

• This data indicates that those in the top 10 are more experienced (older) than those in the top 25 and Gold Fleet overall.
• The Silver Fleet helms are older than the Gold Fleet by almost a decade (9 years).

Helm Age by Finish

Crew Age by Finish

Age Difference between Helm and Crew by Finish

(Negative number helm is younger than helm)

Competitor Categories

• Youth is defined as under 23 years old and younger.
• % of each category has remained fairly constant since last year except for the reduction in youth participants (reduced from 12% to 10%) so class needs to do more to attract youth sailors.
• 40% (12/30) of the women were from Germany (7) or Australia (5) though they were only 21% of the boats so they do the best job attracting women sailors.
• 13% (17) helms were 30 years old or younger; 43% (56) crews were <30

Special Award Categories

• The most competitive category is “Family” which consisted of 10 father/sons, 5 father/daughters, 3 brothers and 2 brother/sister teams demonstrating that F18 racing is a family affair!
• The only “Youth Team” was very competitive finishing 37^th and they were a “Mixed” team.
• One youth helm placed 8^th sailing with an older adult.

Boats by Manufacturer

• 7 different boat builders represented in the fleet of which 5 are currently active building F18s
• 5 different boat builders in the top 25 (20 % of the fleet)
• 4 different boat builders in the top 10 (8 % of the fleet)

Boats by Model

Boats by Year

• 11% of the fleet had new boats (2024 build year)
• 58% of the fleet had boats built since 2020; 42% boats older than 2020
• Average age of boats across total fleet: 4.6 years old (2020 build year or newer)

New Boats by Builder for Past 3 Worlds

• New boats are defined as build year same as Worlds year per hull ID number.
• We had incomplete data on the 2022 Italy Worlds. There were more new boats that year because of Covid and both Nacra and Goodall had recently released new designs (Akurra and Evolution).
• We also looked at the finishing place distribution of the designs that would be considered older because they are no longer manufactured (C2, Infusion, R, Phantom, Wildcat, Tiger). While most of these boats are found towards the back of the fleet and none in the top 25 (best finish 33), they are still relatively evenly distributed across the fleet. This suggests that these designs can still be competitive enough for the majority of the amateur fleet.

Boat Weight

Next tables include comparison of 2024 Worlds with 2023 Travemünde Worlds data.

• 21 boats (16% of the fleet) weighed below 180 kg so had to carry corrector weights to bring the boat to 180 kg
• Top 41 boats sailing weight (including corrector weight) were all in the range of 180-185 kg

Crew Weight

Crew Corrector Weights

• One boat had their weight limited to 7.5 kg under the new rule setting 7.5 kg as the maximum
• 13 boats had their compensation weight eliminated because their boats were greater than 180 kg
• 9 boats had some reduction in the compensation weight because their boat was greater than 180 kg

Average Final Ranking by Weight

Ad Noordzij has developed the following charts to show the relative ranking based on weight groups at 5 kg increments. The left charts are total fleet whereas the right charts are the gold fleet or the top 50% of the fleet where there was no gold/silver fleet split.

• This data is only for decksweeper mainsails. Conventional sails are excluded since few boats compete with them at this time.

• This data includes the following World and European Championships:
  • 2017 Vallensbeck, Denmark
  • 2018 Ballena Alegre, Spain (Europeans)
  • 2018 Sarasota, Florida, USA
  • 2019 Ballena Alegre, Spain
  • 2021 Gaeta, Italy
  • 2022 Arco Vela Lake Garda (Europeans)
  • 2023 Travemünde, Germany
  • 2024 Ballena Alegre, Spain

• This gold fleet data shows it is best to be in the 155-155.9 kg weight range with average finishes in the top 22% of the fleet.

• The flattest gold fleet performance curve is between 145 kg and 165 kg.

• The gold fleet delta graph shows that it is better to be heavier than the ideal range rather than lighter.

• It is better to be heavier over 170 kg than a light team under 135kg though there were not many data points for less 140kg.

• The gold fleet data suggest that there could be a case for relaxing the crew extra weight rules for crews weighing less than 145 kg although the number of data points for crews less than 145 kg is fairly limited (22 in total).

Mainsails by Year

• 35% of the fleet had new mainsails (2024 build year).
• Average age of mainsails across total fleet: 1.7 years old (2022 build year or newer)
• 69% of jibs were same year as mainsail but for:
  • 17% were on average 2.0 years newer than the mainsail
  • 14% were on average 1.8 years older than the mainsail
• All mainsails except 2 were decksweepers so the transition to DS mainsails is in effect complete.

Mainsails by Sailmaker

• There were 6 Akurras in the top 10 and all used Goodall sails.
• 95% of jibs were same sailmaker as mainsail so did not produce a chart for jibs

Spinnakers by Years

• 40% of the fleet had new spinnakers (2024 build year)
• 78% of the fleet had spinnakers made 2022 or newer
• Average age of spinnakers across total fleet: 1.7 years old (same as mainsails)
• 52% of spinnakers were same year as mainsail but for:
  • 26% were on average 2.3 years newer than the mainsail
  • 22% were on average 3.1 years older than the mainsail

Spinnakers by Sailmakers

• 16 different spinnaker sailmakers represented in fleet.
• Top 4 sailmakers represented were used by 76% of the sailors.
• Other category includes Landenberger, Ferrari, Switch Sails & GP Sails.

F18 World Champions by Country

A new champion country (Spain) is added to the list of countries having a F18 World Champion.

F18 Worlds Venues

Here is by country the distribution of F18 World Championship hosts including next year’s Netherlands (NED) and 2026 in Australia. Have your country added to this list by bidding to host a World Championship.