2025 Recap
- By Bourquin Sailing
Summer on Olympic Waters
The three ILCA brothers from Banderas Bay, participated in three International Regattas in Los Angeles this Summer.
ILCA North American
Namkhai, Sanka and Inti raced in June for Mexico at the 2025 ILCA Northamerican Championships hosted by Alamitos Bay Yacht Club. Two ILCA 7 and one ILCA 6 represented proudly Bourquin Sailing on the Olympic Waters of Long Beach.
Long Beach Olympic Classes Regatta
In July took place the Long Beach Olympic Classes Regata (OCR), the oldest regatta for Olympic classes in the US as this event has been run since 1964. During that race, Namkhai and Sanka competed among some of the best ILCA racers of the world (some of them Olympians), all of them coming to Long Beach for the Gran Slam 2025 and to learn the Olympic waters. Racing against top world sailors is very inspiring and showed that with the skills and the knowledge of the boat they have, Namkhai or Sanka can try to secure a spot for Mexico to go to the 2028 LA Olympics in ILCA, what would be the very first time an ILCA man would represent Mexico during the highest world event. They need now to practice and get skills on big fleet management, what can only be acquired during big events.
It is worth mentioning that Namkhai was third of the countries participating in the 2026 Santo Domingo Centeramerican and Caribbean Games (First event lined up to the 2028 LA Olympics) and would have qualified for Mexico if he would have Mexican nationality, topic we are working on since November 2024.
The OCR was a great regatta and we could appreciate how much both young sailors (finishing the regatta only one point from each other!) enhanced their skills during this season 2024-2025.
ILCA Youth Worlds
Last event was for Inti one of the biggest and toughest events in the life of an ILCA racer: The ILCA 6 Youth World Championships, this year in San Pedro, Los Angeles, the city that will host the next Olympic Games.
Not less than 223 young ILCA 6 racers from 35 countries raced for a 6 days long World Championship and Inti represented very decently Banderas Bay and the VSF finishing 117th of 140 boys and first of the three racers from Mexico.
These world championships are very important in the evolution of young racers as they show their strengths and the weaknesses compared to other racers from other parts of the world and help focus their training program for the next months. These events are also a fantastic opportunity to meet and share with other young sailors from all around the world who share the same passion.
Namkhai's Recap
This was a great year for the team. We managed to participate in six international regattas, Mayan Windfest, WesMex, Trofeo Princesa Sofía, CONADE National Games, ILCA North American and the Olympic Classes regatta.
We had podiums and first places in all races in Mexico, and managed mid-fleet with top 15 races at both the North American and OCR.
It's been a great year to improve our big fleet racing, and I feel like it's been one of the most successful years in our career.
I'm looking forward to more racing next year and taking our sailing to the next level.
Next in our calendar is planning our racing schedule and sponsorships for next year!
Sanka's Recap
These past two years have been the beginning of something great, we have had some amazing regattas, lots of learning, and huge experience gains that make the difference in this sport. Because this sport is not like soccer that by 25 you are done, this sport is the long game, the guys that are consistently winning are in their late twenties to mid thirties. The laser or ILCA is the most competitive and difficult Olympic sailing class.
There were ups and downs but the improvement from the previous race in Long Beach is huge, I beat plenty of Olympians in some races! The skill is there I just need to work on consistency which comes with experience.