In the first week of March, Sven Nuutmann, President of the Estonian Yachting Association, Kaspars Rozkalns, President of the Latvian Sailing Association, and Mantas Klimantavičius, Member of the Board of the Lithuanian Yachting Union, met with the common goal of taking Baltic sailing to the top of the world sailing.
At the meetings it was recognised that Estonia and Latvia have a strong common ground in sailing. In particular, aligned event calendar and participation in the Gulf of Riga regatta in Latvia and the Moonsund Regatta in Estonia is the highlight of the season for offshore sailors from both countries, while sailors from both countries also participate in other sailing regattas.
Lithuanian offshore sailing is also very well developed, as evidenced by growing number of participants in international ORC championships, ongoing preparation to organize 2026 ORC European Championship in Klaipeda, also annually held events ORC National Championship and Curronian Lagoon Regatta.
According to Sven Nuutmann, Lithuanian colleagues will gain experience at the 2025 ORC World Championship in Tallinn. “Lithuania is also a good example to follow in the development of a sporty one design fleet Platu 25, and this year for the first time some Estonian teams will take part in the traditional Galves Taure regatta in Trakai together with Latvian and Lithuanian teams” said Nuutmann.
Regarding the children and youth regattas, the parties agreed that more can certainly be done through closer cooperation to motivate young sailors to participate more actively in each other’s regattas. “We have agreed that the federations will add the calendars of all Baltic competitions to their national sailing federation websites, which will improve the mutual participation in competitions,” said Nuutmann.
As in Estonia, the mainstay of Latvian and Lithuanian sailing is Optimist sailing, from where you move on to the ILCA or two-boat. In Latvia, a sizable 420 class fleet has emerged in recent years, making it the ideal class to start in a two-man boat. Latvia currently focuses on scaling the funnel of youth sailors to increase a competition in the Optimist class and they would later either sitch to ILCA, 420 or lifestyle sailing, but would remain in the sailing community In Lithuania, the iQFoil is traditionally strong, alongside the ILCA.
In Latvia, as in Estonia, funding for sailing is financially supported through the local Olympic Committees, in Lithuania through the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport. To attract private sponsors, all federations are making great efforts to ensure that young talent has the financial conditions to compete with their competitors from other countries. A major challenge in all three Baltic States is the qualification and training of coaches. “In order to improve the motivation of coaches, it is necessary to find ways to better remunerate their work. A good example of cooperation is last year’s Optimist class clinic in Jurmala, which was attended by Estonian and Lithuanian athletes and coaches.” said Nuutmann.
Finally, the Baltic sailing leaders agreed that regular exchanges of information and sharing of experience are needed to improve cooperation.
