The International Switch Class has launched its Event Charter Programme, an initiative designed to provide a highly efficient, cost-conscious, and environmentally friendly “travel-light” pathway for hydrofoil sailors competing in international high-performance dinghy events.
High-performance foiling dinghies can be expensive and logistically draining to ship globally, often leaving sailors without their equipment during long transit windows. The Switch Class addresses this roadblock by providing standardized charter platforms at major events, enabling competitors to travel with just their personal, high-performance components while leaving the heavy lifting to the class infrastructure.
The modular design of the Switch foiling dinghy ensures that every boat is built to strict one-design manufacturing controls. Because of this exacting precision, a sailor’s personal rig and foils will seamlessly fit onto any charter hull provided by the organization, guaranteeing that the chartered setup behaves exactly like the boat they train on at home. The program has already seen rapid adoption, with 50% of the available charter platforms booked within just three weeks of its launch.
Key Features of the Event Charter Programme
- “Travel-Light” Logistics: The charter program specifically covers the heaviest and most cumbersome components of the boat—the hull and beams.
- Personal Component Compatibility: Sailors bring their own critical high-performance parts, including the mast, sails, foils, boom, and miscellaneous components, ensuring total familiarity with their racing setups.
- Airline-Friendly Transport: A specially designed wheeled travel bag is available to house the sailor’s personal components, meeting passenger airline standards to bypass steep shipping freight costs.
- Environmental & Financial Sustainability: Eliminating the need to ship complete boats across oceans dramatically reduces the logistical carbon footprint of international regattas and saves sailors significant transport capital.
- Major Event Availability: Charter platforms (alongside a limited number of complete boats) will be actively deployed at premier international fixtures, including Foiling Week in Malcesine and the 2026 Switch Global Championships in Genoa, Italy.
- Pathway for New Competitors: While the initiative primarily assists existing Switch owners, it simultaneously serves as an accessible gateway for new or curious sailors to experience elite foiling competition without upfront transit risks.
- Versatile Race Formats: The easily transportable charter fleet will also be utilized to seed a new series of “Special Events,” featuring spectator-friendly structures like sprint racing, knock-out brackets, relay racing, long-distance challenges, and speed events.
This Switch Class Introduction Video showcases the high-speed, dynamic nature of the full-carbon Switch foiling dinghy platform, illustrating why the class is expanding its global event accessibility.
Base Boat
The Base Boat provides the core platform of the Switch boat without foils or rig. Included components:
- Hull with console
- Cross beams
- Carbon console with fittings
- Spreader and prodder
- EPE foam to fit in trampolines
- Boat trolley
- Boat cover
- Shared side trolley
- Rudder pintle
- Control lines and shock cord and spliced on lines
- All blocks that are attached to hull
What you must bring
Required equipment to be supplied by the charterer:
- Foils, push rod and bellcrank and locking pin.
- Ride height adjustment system
- Bow sprit and bolt
- Push rods, pins and nuts, ride height barrel and fastenings
- Wand, attachment bolts and nuts
- Trampolines and lashings
- Mast sections (3), shrouds , threaded eyes and forestay loop
- Fitted out Boom with vang strap, mainsheet straps, gooseneck pin, vang lever
- Sail, battens, cams and clew strap
- Mainsheet and all mainsheet blocks ,ride height lines, floating cunningham and vang lines and blocks (ex control lines and spliced on lines)
- Boat breaker
Even outside of the charter program, the Switch is engineered as one of the most portable high-performance craft on the market. When dismantled, a complete boat—including its launch trolley and peripheral extras—packs tightly into a compact 1.2 m3 transport box. The Event Charter Programme maximizes this modular design by allowing the class to dense-pack and transport a high volume of hull and beam platforms using standard, cost-effective infrastructure like regular utility vans, trailers, and small shipping containers.
This logistical agility underpins the International Switch Class’s broader goal: expanding beyond traditional fleet racing to cultivate a highly engaging, spectator-friendly global community. By leveraging an easily transportable charter fleet, organizers can rapidly deploy identical hardware to seed diverse sailing formats worldwide, establishing a durable and scalable pathway that accommodates everyone from professional Olympic contenders to youth and master racers.
Additional Insights & Technical Breakdown
- Ultra-Compact Footprint: Outside of the travel-light charter model, an owner’s complete standard setup (including the trolley) condenses into a single 1.2 m3 box, simplifying personal storage and domestic freight.
- Streamlined Multi-Boat Transit: Because the platform easily dismantles, the class organization can fit large quantities of the charter hulls and beams into conventional consumer trailers and vans rather than relying exclusively on specialized maritime shipping.
- Strict One-Design Integration: The report emphasizes that every single Switch is manufactured to identical tolerances by builder Element Six. This rigidity ensures zero performance variance when a sailor bolts their own foils and mast onto a chartered hull.
- Diversified Racing Class Growth: The transportable fleet is heavily tied to supporting an evolving roster of diverse divisions, expanding participation across Youth (U19/U23), Women’s, Lightweight, Masters, and Grandmasters categories.
- Global Target Fixtures: The 2026 event schedule heavily anchors around premier foiling hubs, explicitly utilizing the charter fleet to lower the barrier of entry for international sailors traveling to the Switch Global Championships at the Waterfront Sailing Club in Genoa, Italy (scheduled for late October 2026).
Visit Switch Class website for more information
