For 25 years Sail Melbourne has delivered some of the best and most important 'Off the Beach' and Olympic Class regattas in Australia and in doing so attracted some of the world's best sailors in Victoria. Victoria should be very proud of the reputation and status of Sail Melbourne and this has been only possible with the huge support of our volunteers and partner clubs.

Since the early 1990's Sail Melbourne and its partner clubs have delivered over 30 World Championships, the 99 Worlds, the Oceania leg of the Sailing World Cup 2012-2015 and the 2016 Sailing World Cup Final. We are now working with the Victorian State Government and key stakeholders to ensure that Sail Melbourne now evolves and moves forward to 2020 and beyond. For this reason the Sail Melbourne Executive have created the following updated Sail Melbourne Vision Statement:

"Sail Melbourne (SM) exists for the following core objectives;

promote the sport of sailing,

drive economic impact to the State of Victoria through the sport of sailing,

deliver world class sailing events and increase the standard of competition and create a pathway for sailors, official and volunteers alike.

Core to the SM vision is the annual Sail Melbourne International (SMI) Event which has a 25-year history of being the pinnacle annual Olympic, Paralympic and Invited classes sailing event in the southern hemisphere. SMI is to be Australia's preeminent, highest quality, highest attended and regarded annual “off the beach” sailing event, tasked with maintaining its existing global (100pt) status and attracting additional regional and world championships to Victoria on the back of world’s best practice, venues, equipment, race management, and officials.

SMI is Australia’s key annual multi-class regatta for Olympic, Paralympic and Invited classes on the global sailing calendar attracting the world's best sailors to Victoria from interstate and overseas. Hosting of SMI is critical in the role of trying to level the playing field in a very European sport, by ensuring there is an major international annual regatta in Asia-pacific.

In addition to SMI, SM shall seek to attract and develop new major sailing events to Victoria to deliver on its core objectives.

SM also recognizes the sailing community, particularly the partner clubs and volunteer base that is essential to the delivery of our sport widely, and specifically coming together as a Victorian sailing community for the delivery of world class major sailing events. SM see that fostering, support, education and recognition of these volunteers as an essential part of what makes Sail Melbourne great."

Mark Klemens - Sail Melbourne Chair.

With this revised vision, the SM Exec have set about in securing the Event's future with key stakeholders including the State Government of Victoria, along two core elements:

Building of the SMI regatta to be bigger and better than ever, and;

Sail Melbourne - 2020 Summer of Sailing. Announcement will be made soon, however SM has worked with partner club's, Australian and International Class Associations, coaches and sailors to focus the attention of the sailing world on Victoria over the summer of 2019/2020 in the critical build-up to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. With the clubs and class associations we have secured six of the Olympic Class World Championships as well as a number of other significant class World Championships and will be making changes to the SMI format for 2020 to make Victoria the home to for many Olympic sailors escaping the northern hemisphere winter in their build-up to Tokyo.

Planning is continuing for the 2018 SMI at Royal Brighton Yacht Club and we look forward to another great event (with better weather than 2017). Over the coming months we will keep you posted for both 2018 SMI details as well as the 2020 Summer of Sailing.