2000 – 2025

The new millennium opened with the RYA riding high on the world stage, after a stunning performance at the Sydney Olympic Regatta that saw Team GBR take three gold and two silver medals. The skiff scene was now dominating sailing, both internationally and domestically, and with this seen as more attractive to the younger sailors, in 2004 the RYA launched the Onboard Programme, which was aimed at building a new level of youth participation.

Away from the racing scene, life afloat was becoming increasingly dominated by discussions of climate change and on how our waterborne activities were impacting on the environment. Once again, the RYA would take the lead joining forces with British Marine to form The Green Blue initiative setting out in clear terms the problems our waters, both inland and at sea, were facing.

There would be fantastic news for the UK and the British Sailing Team in 2007 when the IOC announced that London had been chosen as host city for the 2012 Olympic Games. As part of the selection process the IOC had been shown the intended venue for the Olympic Regatta, which would be held at Weymouth and Portland. In the past, Olympic Trials (WOW or Weymouth Olympic Week) were run from the main town beach, but for 2012, a National Sailing Academy was constructed, that would provide not just a wonderful base for the Olympic Regatta, but a wonderful lasting legacy for the RYA of the future. Having won the right to host the Games, the focus for the RYA would now shift on how to deliver not just all of the new facilities, but all the teams necessary to deliver a welcoming, well organised event. The broad base of the RYA would become invaluable as volunteers filled race management teams, whilst other filled all the much-needed jobs ashore. As a result, the 2012 Olympic Regatta was a huge success, with another five medal haul out afloat, plus the long-term prospect of the Olympic Centre being available for topflight domestic and international events in the years to come.

As well the Olympic classes, another class of boat would make Weymouth a home base, as the International Moths found the waters there to their liking. The Moths were now fully foiling, which would pose yet more questions for the RYA as they sought ways to integrate this exciting, not to mention high speed, development into more traditional forms of dinghy event.

This though would be a small issue compared to what the RYA would face next, for after the country voted in 2016 to leave the European Union, many of the freedoms that boating communities had enjoyed, including open access to European waters and freedom of movement of boats and people, would all suddenly be the subject of a wide reaching process of renegotiation. Thankfully for the UK’s sailing population, the RYA were able to soften many of the potential issues that might have arisen, and though there would be the need for more control when planning to cross the Channel or North Sea, thanks to the RYA’s efforts, the new processes soon became normal practice.

If ‘foiling is the future’ had become the new mantra for sailors now known as Generation X, the RYA showed how alive it was to the changes in not only the craft but the demographics by adding foiling to the syllabuses for both sailing and windsurfing schemes. This though would just be the start of the changes, as in 2021 the RYA would launch the new Wing Training scheme that would embrace both wing surfing and wing foiling.

However, even as this initiative was getting afloat, the first Covid based lockdowns were pulling everyone back to shore, leaving the RYA in a difficult position, as not only did they have to manage the needs of their own workforce, but the whole of the leisure boating community in the UK would look to the Association for guidance as to what could be done and when. It was a measure of the success of the RYA’s efforts that the right balance was struck, with there being few media reports of sailors being caught breaking lockdown restrictions.

Just how different the RYA will be in the future can be seen in the way that the old Dinghy Show would morph into the ‘Dinghy and Watersports Show’ (now held at Farnborough) in 2021, whilst the earlier investment made by the RYA into the new formats of sailing was rewarded with a gold medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Regatta for Ellie Aldridge in the Women’s Formula Kite event Just the latest success for an Association that for 150 years has focused on making boating the best experience it can be and as accessible to as many people as possible.