The SuMoth Challenge unites student teams worldwide to design, build, and race their own sustainable foiling boats. Sustainable Moth: a competition, a research platform, and the fastest learning environment in sustainable marine engineering, backed by 11th Hour Racing
Registration for the 9th Edition opens September 2026
25 Teams competing
8Countries represented
2800+Students since 2019
The SuMoth Challenge
Where sustainability gets tested.
Teams are evaluated on more than speed. Every material choice, every structural decision, every gram of carbon has to survive scrutiny alongside lap times. Sustainability isn't a bonus category, it's the constraint the whole design has to work within. There is no shortcut.
Vision
The missing link
Theory means nothing until it's wet. SuMoth puts students through the same design-build-test cycle they'll run for the rest of their careers."
Objectives
Built to outlast the race
Every boat is designed knowing it won't end at the finish line. Teams plan upfront for what happens after: what gets reused, what gets recycled, what still holds up next season. Longevity is a design decision, not an afterthought.
Impact
More than a competition
A collaborative research platform where ideas are tested and technologies validated. Results go into the public archive, and next year's teams start from here.
Three stages, scored independently, but built to compound. It starts with an idea. From there, teams design it, build it, and race it on the water. Nothing skips ahead, and nothing borrows a free pass from the stage before.
Stage S1 - Design
Where the idea becomes a design
Every choice gets defended to the jury before a single part gets cut. Sustainability isn't optional here, it's the spec.
Stage S2 - Manufacture
Built from the ground up
Teams build and sail their own boat. Theory meets water, fast.
Stage S3 - Racing
The proof is on the water
Race week settles it. Reports go public, so next year starts ahead, not from zero.
SuMoth is a platform where students, universities, industry experts, and partners come together around one belief: the future of the marine industry needs to be built differently.
Students
Design, build and race your own SuMoth. Compete across all three stages, or enter S1 only to build experience.
We don't collect logos. Everyone here is involved because they want to be, working alongside teams who are testing the same question they are: what a more sustainable marine industry actually looks like in practice.
Title Sponsor
11th Hour Racing
Committed to the health and resilience of ocean systems, supporting innovative, sustainable solutions through sport, storytelling and grant-making. Title sponsor since the beginning.
For us the SuMoth Challenge is inspiration for passion, it's what we try to live in our factory, alongside our core values, and innovation.
Luigi MaffioliGottifredi Maffioli Technical Director
The Challenge builds momentum to raise awareness of the problems we face. Teams have the chance to push limits, there's no such thing as 'no'; anything is possible.
Don MontagueKai Concepts Founder
The SuMoth Challenge is the perfect platform for students who want to experiment. Pushing limits, failing, and trying again is the best way to learn.
Laura Marimon GiovannettiRISE
SuMoth provides students with a fantastic opportunity to tackle contemporary marine challenges, while developing professional skills, and fostering the next generation of researchers in sailing technology.
