Class President Andy Forbes competing in the 2026 Nationals – he’ll be in Melbourne for the Epigen Worlds
Now just two months away from the CTO Global Logistics J/24 Pre-Worlds and the Epigen J/24 World Championship, things are already heating up with 38 entries currently. The Irish boat ‘Headcase’ has just arrived. The Japanese Gekko Team boat is due to arrive in the next two weeks, Kurt Dammeier’s ‘Amuse Bouche’ is due in a similar time and Tony Parker’s ‘Bangor Packet’ is on the water coming from the east coast of the US as I write.
The Irish boat ‘Headcase’ helmed by Cillian Dickson, is the current world champion, with Tony Parker 2nd and Kohei Ichikawa’s Gekko third at last year’s worlds in England, so the stage is being set for a huge battle of the overseas competitors. That’s not to say that Australian boats won’t come up well against them – but that remains to be seen.
Recently we ran a youth qualifying regatta in Sydney with crews from NSW, SA and VIC competing. The winners were the VIC crew and have been given the J/24 ‘Next Gen’ to sail in the worlds against a number of overseas crews.
The volunteer team lead by our committee is doing an amazing job, organising every little detail in this huge undertaking and with our major sponsor Epigen (Peerless Industrial Group) making so much help available, the regatta is expected to be a huge success.
We have an amazing media job being done by our team. See more and regular updates on the regatta:
Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/EpigenJ24WorldChampionshipMelbourne2026
Instagram page https://www.instagram.com/j24worldchampionships2026
Or go to the regatta website https://j24worlds2026.com
Simon