World Yacht Racing Forum in Monaco this December

7:10 PM Tue 10 Feb 2009 GMT

'The World Yacht Racing Forum 2008' onEdition &copy Click Here to view large photo

Informa Yacht Group, organisers of the World Yacht Racing Forum, have announced the dates of the 2009 edition, which will be held from December 9-10 at Monaco's Grimaldi Forum.

The announcement follows the overwhelming success of the inaugural event last December which brought together 350 participants from 37 countries to the two-day conference. Delegates included America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race team principals, yacht racing events and clubs, major yachting sponsors, industry suppliers, cities and venues.

Highlights included keynote addresses from Sir Keith Mills, CEO of Team Origin, and Australian sailing World Champion Peter Gilmour. Highly appreciated was the presence of Knut Frostad, CEO of the Volvo Ocean Race, who made a special trip from the race stopover in Kochin in India to deliver a compelling presentation on the future of global yachting events.

Other well known figures from the sport of sailing attending the Forum included seven times world champion Paul Cayard, triple gold and silver Olympic medallist Ben Ainslie CBE, and skipper of Team Alinghi, Brad Butterworth, who joined a lively debate on the America's Cup alongside Tom Ehman representing BMW Oracle Racing.

'As a first event, the Forum more than exceeded our expectations' said Event Director James Pleasance. 'The yachting industry has never had an event like this before and what the Forum proved is that it genuinely needs such a platform to drive forward the key commercial issues and opportunities within the sport'.

Also praising the initiative was the event's opening keynote speaker, Sir Keith Mills: 'This is a very exciting, and hopefully regular, conference on our calendar. The World of Yacht Racing has needed something like this for many years.'

The 2009 edition of the World Yacht Racing Forum will welcome new experts and personalities from the yacht racing scene and will introduce a number of new discussion topics. 'Some of the key areas we will look to cover this year will include the effect the recent economic downturn has had on the sport, and also the emerging markets for the sport in the Middle-East and Asia' said Pleasance.

The two-day Forum will co-locate once more with the Motorsport Business Forum at the Grimaldi Forum venue. Delegates will have access to the networking areas of both Forums including a jointly hosted reception on the 9 December.

Delegates can also benefit from a 20% early-bird discount before 1 March by registering online at www.worldyachtracingforum.com