F18 Worlds Statistics Published as Class Eyes European Championship Events

The International Formula 18 Class Association has published a statistics summary and follow-up posts covering the 2026 F18 World Championship at Jervis Bay Sailing Club in Western Australia, while the numbers from last year's Noordwijk event continue to frame the conversation about where the class stands globally.

The 2025 F18 World Championship, held in Noordwijk, Netherlands from July 7-11, drew 96 boats and 192 competitors representing 17 countries. F18 Class Vice-President Steve Stroebel, who authored the official statistics post, noted the turnout was nearly identical to the 2023 Worlds in Travemünde, Germany, which attracted 97 boats. Both northern European venues fell well short of the 131 boats recorded at a previous Worlds held in Spain, a comparison Stroebel flagged directly in his write-up.

The geographic pattern is hard to ignore for anyone tracking F18 fleet participation over time. Two consecutive northern European championships produced almost identical numbers, while the Spanish venue remains the high-water mark in recent memory. Whether the 2026 Australian event breaks from that northern European baseline is one of the more interesting questions heading into the coming season.

On the championship records side, the Winning Nations section of the class website drives home just how thoroughly Australia has dominated the title. Australia's championship total now stands at seven, with Darren Bundock, the current champion, personally accounting for six of them. That's a staggering individual share of a national record that was already the class benchmark.

The class website also includes a Hosting NCAs section laying out the by-country distribution of F18 World Championship hosts, with the 2026 event listed as the next Australian chapter. The association is actively soliciting future bids, inviting nations to have their countries added to the host list by submitting a bid to run a World Championship.

With the 2026 Worlds already anchored to Jervis Bay Sailing Club and the European fleet digesting the Noordwijk data, the F18 calendar is building momentum on both sides of the hemisphere.