News Seychelles to host the 2024 African Championship

Seychelles to host the 2024 African Championship

The Executive Committee would like to announce that they have approved the bid from Seychelles to host the 2024 Optimist African Championship in Victoria, Seychelles, from September 23 to 30, 2024.

Seychelles successfully hosted the championship in 2019 just prior to the start of the pandemic which unfortunately put Optimist sailing on hold in Africa for the past 2+ years.  43 sailors from 9 nations attended the 2019 event (ANG, FRA, KEN, MRI, MOZ, SEY, RSA, TAN, and TUN.)

Mr. Alain Alcindor, from the Seychelles Yachting Association, our member from Seychelles commented recently “we hope to welcome Optimist sailors from all parts of Africa to Seychelles to participate in the 2024 Optimist African Championship.”

The 2022 Optimist African Championship held in Cape Town, South Africa September 24th to October 1st, was the first IODA African Championship to take place since the beginning of the pandemic. 66 sailors from 6 countries in Africa (ALG, ANG, MOZ, SEY, RSA, and TAN) and from 4 international countries (ANT, ARG, AUS, & BRA) attended the championship - a sign that Optimist sailing in Africa is starting to recover from the 2+ year hiatus. We hope that even more sailors will attend the 2023 Optimist African Championship taking place at the Royal Yacht Club Mdiq in Morocco, next May 2 to 9th.

We would like to welcome Mauritius who has recently re-joined IODA to the Optimist family in Africa. We look forward to seeing their sailors at future African Championships.

IODA is delighted to return to Seychelles for the 2024 Optimist African Championships and look forward to working with the organizers in the planning of the event to welcome Optimist sailors from across Africa and internationally to the championship.