The Windsurfing Program Hydro-foiling in sailing has exploded in popularity in every form of sailing, taking sailing craft of all kinds, including windsurf, kitesurf, sailboats and more recently wing-foils to new heights of speed, adrenalin and racing potential. Together with Windsurfing Queensland, the Squadron made a hugely accessible entry point to the world of foiling through the windsurfing pathway, building on the fantastic facilities for learning to windsurf which RQYS already offers. The addition of three learner foil sets and seven race foil sets to the Windsurfing Centre of Excellence has brought a lot of interest back to the windsurfing space. The sailing academy team has brought back the Techno293 windsurfing youth squad as a pathway class leading to these foil-boards, with the goal to build a Youth IQFoil Squad in 2024. So far, this has been a huge success, starting with a squad of four in Term One in 2023, and building to 13 squad members aged 12 to 17, with four or five prospective youth foil squad members already pencilled-in for first term next year. The first wind foil youth squad — that was also a massive success last year — has contributed to four squad members joining the Queensland Academy of Sport, and two members of this squad achieved a top 20 and top 30 result in the European Championships in the Youth IQFoil (Youth Olympic Windsurfing) class. With a growing fleet of up to 15 wind-foils racing at RQYS, and plenty of interest from the youth coming up through the windsurfing pathway, the foiling future of RQYS is looking very bright indeed. n Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron Yearbook Mainsheet 2023 47
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