The International Nacra 17 Class Association is calling for nominations for Class President. The new President will lead the Olympic mixed multihull through a period of deliberate change: growing the fleet, raising its profile, and strengthening the class’s place between Olympic and professional sailing.
Current President Mateo Majdalani is stepping down. Nominations close on Tuesday 27 October 2026, and members will vote at an electronic Special General Meeting later this autumn.
Why the President is stepping down
Mateo Majdalani has told the executive he will step aside. He is still racing and starting a young family, and the role now asks more time than he can give it.
The class thanks Mateo for his leadership and for staying on through the handover.
A class at a turning point
The Nacra 17 is in a position few Olympic classes share, and the next President will decide what the class does with it.
The boat is ready. In the 2016 cycle the equipment struggled. Eight years of development since, including the move to full foiling, have produced a durable, consistent boat that sails properly across the widest wind range on the Olympic slate.
The pathway is real. The Nacra 17 is one of the only Olympic classes producing professional sailors. Its sailors race in SailGP, and last month the reigning world champions, Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei, trimmed Luna Rossa to victory at the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta in Naples. The class wants to make that link deliberate rather than accidental, so Olympic multihull sailing becomes the obvious route into elite professional racing.
The class also has a particular job in developing women as professional sailors. Every Nacra 17 crew is one man and one woman, and the women in this fleet steer, trim and make calls on the fastest boat at the Games. That is the experience professional teams look for, and the class intends to put its female sailors in front of those teams.
What has to change is the size and profile of the fleet. The Nacra 17 is the most technical boat in Olympic sailing, and that has kept the fleet small. Growing it, and making Nacra 17 racing the best broadcast product in sailing, is the core of the President’s brief.
