Swiss Sailing League
The Swiss Sailing League (SSL) is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2025. The national sailing league is not only a successful format, but also a vision that has been connecting and inspiring sailors for a decade.
The kick-off for the Swiss National Sailing League took place exactly ten years ago, at the end of April 2015. Eighteen Swiss sailing clubs found ideal conditions for the first national showdown on Lake Thun, with beautiful springtime temperatures and a stunning mountain backdrop. They sailed on J70 yachts, which were borrowed from the German Bundesliga and transported to the Bernese Oberland at great expense.
The two initiators, Carmen Somm and Patrick Zaugg, got the idea for a Swiss club championship in Germany. At home, however, they were met with a lot of skepticism. “No ten clubs will take part,” critics complained when the competition was announced. They were proven very wrong.
Convincing format
Somm and Zaugg had hit the nerve of the times with their project. The short, fast races on completely identical boats with direct referee decisions and the advantage that the participants did not have to worry about equipment and boat transportation were very popular. After the kick-off on Lake Thun, the teams were enthusiastic: “great sailing fun” and “definitely continue” was the tenor. After the second event of the pilot year on Lake Constance, it was clear that the SSL could start operating with twelve teams in two leagues in 2016.
Patrick Zaugg, the league’s first president, worked intensively with the board to exploit the potential, but also had to fight against obstacles. Suddenly, a format was successful in Switzerland that was considered almost revolutionary for the existing structures and was viewed as competition, especially by class associations. But the sailors and the clubs associated with the league were not deterred. “The league is a huge opportunity to breathe new sporting life into the sailing clubs,” Carmen Somm sums it up.
Diversity and innovation
The success was unstoppable and the league grew steadily. In Markus Blaesi, the Swiss Sailing League Assocation (SSLA) has had a president since 2021 who is bursting with ideas and is constantly launching new formats: Youth, Women’s and Master Cup, 2K Club Team Racing, sailing camps and even regattas at sea. The association organizes up to 25 regatta events every year. In 2024, over 1100 sailors took part in the championships. The SSLA currently has 41 clubs as members, making it the most successful sailing format in Switzerland. And as the results of the Swiss representatives in the Champions League show, the standard in the Super League is also first-class internationally. Markus Blaesi and his crew have not let adverse circumstances slow them down. They have defied coronavirus and have come up with a solution to counteract the quagga restrictions with the hub concept (see box).
CLUB TEAM? HERE IS A DUEL BETWEEN THE LUZERN CITY CLUBS. ©Loris von Siebenthal
OF THE LEAGUE, ALWAYS SURPRISES WITH
NEW IDEAS. ©Walter Rudin
Visions of the future
Further innovations are planned for next season. 23 women’s club teams will compete in the first and second women’s leagues. The Master Cup, in which all participants must be at least 50 years old, completes the program. In nine sailing camps, sailors can develop their skills thanks to great coaches. Young people are the future, even in sailing. Too many young people are lost to the clubs after their basic training. Together with the clubs, the SSLA wants to offer young sailors a platform from 2026 that will allow youth club teams to compete against each other in a league with at least three events. Markus Blaesi will continue to chair the SSLA until 2027 and will then step down. “My openness and judgments are not always well received, but one thing remains unchanging for me: my love for the Swiss Sailing League,” he says. “I hope that the Swiss Sailing League will remain a beacon for sailing in the decades to come – for young and old, for everyone who loves nature and the sport.”
The league will celebrate the anniversary from October 3-5, 2025 in Versoix as part of a double event with the Super and Challenge League finals and a Presidential Race.
The SSLA hub concept
The quagga mussel is not only a threat to nature, but also to the Swiss Sailing League. In order to curb its spread, launching boats into the water is becoming increasingly problematic or even prohibited altogether. The SSLA Board has therefore launched the “Hub Concept” project. The aim is to have two complete, identical fleets of sailing boats with the necessary infrastructure. These will be stationed at specific locations, the “hubs”, during defined periods. This means that several events can be held on the same day.
