Pensacola Bay Makes History, Hosting First WASZP Games in the Americas

Alejandro Galavis is 13 years old, from Pensacola, and on Tuesday he lined up against some of the best one-design foiling sailors on the planet. Racing in his first international WASZP Games, and doing it on home water, the teenager captured something most competitors at this level take years to feel. "For me in the world championship it's like the WASZP in the first place it's like so much adrenaline when you go out, it's crazy," he said. "People from all over the country and world is here."

That last part is quite literally true. Seventy-one competitors representing 12 countries descended on Pensacola Bay for the week, including three local sailors, Galavis among them. It is the first time the world championships have been held in North America. For a class that has spread to over 30 countries since its 2016 launch, arriving in the Americas for the first time is no small thing.

The two-week international showcase runs March 16-28 on Pensacola Bay, with championship racing scheduled for March 24-28 at Pensacola Yacht Club. Lead-in events include the WASZP All-Stars sprint competition and a Pre-Games Regatta, both designed to highlight short-format, high-intensity racing. The All-Stars Invitational alone produced its share of drama: Australia's Louis Tilly stormed to victory in the Men's division and America's Pearl Lattanzi held firm to secure the Women's title, with a dramatic final-day twist seeing Tilly surge up the leaderboard with a commanding late performance.

Hosting the WASZP Games in Pensacola has been in the works for the last few years thanks to the presence of American Magic and the uniqueness of Pensacola Bay. American Magic COO Tyson Lamond framed the significance in terms of the sailors themselves: "We're bringing 80 of the best young sailors from around the world to Pensacola Bay," he said, adding that the event creates opportunities while showing visiting competitors the depth of a welcoming local community.

Tom Pace, the 2026 WASZP Games chair and Pensacola Yacht Club commodore emeritus, made the case for the venue in bluntly practical terms. "Pensacola Bay, the size of it, the depth of the water," he said. "The fact that it's windy almost at least sometime during every week during 52 weeks of the year. We're very accessible as California or the Northwest or certainly anything you get along the Eastern seaboard." Pace also noted an economic dimension that city officials have echoed: "That bay is an economic driver. You don't have to paint it, you don't have to protect it, you don't have to insure it, and you really don't have to put an age back on it."

The opening ceremony Monday night was held at the American Magic High Performance Center, with local and international figures gathered before racing kicked off Tuesday. Mayor D.C. Reeves placed the event in a longer arc for the city. "It's hard for any community to plant their flag and say they're the best at anything in the country or in the world," Reeves said, "so the fact that we're one of the preeminent sailing destinations on the planet, we feel like this will only get bigger and better."

The WASZP is a single-handed hydrofoiling dinghy designed by Andrew McDougall in 2016 as a one-design racer for both youth and adult racing. It is the world's most popular one-design foiling dinghy, designed to make foiling accessible to sailors globally at a fraction of the cost of other classes. McDougall, who attended the opening ceremony, built the class with exactly the demographic now racing in Pensacola Bay in mind. "What's happening in America for us in this world is pretty amazing," he said. "We started ten years ago here, it was taken up pretty well, but we didn't really come here and push it but now we have a whole lot of people that are really supporting it."

McDougall's clearest measure of success isn't standing at a world championship, though. "They are the future and they are the reason why I'm doing this," he said of the class's youngest competitors. "I've been working this for 15 year and that's exactly where I want it to be with 12-year-old's, 14-year-old's getting that support."

The event marks the biggest foiling event in North American history. For the Swarm gathering on Pensacola Bay this week, that milestone arrived right on time.