Celebrating Olympic class performances, checking in with the Globe40 fleet, looking ahead to Rio
by David Schmidt 7 Apr 16:00 BST
April 7, 2026
Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance win gold at first Sailing Grand Slam regatta of the season © Sailing Energy
The Los Angeles 2028 Olympics might still be more than two years over the horizon, but for Olympic hopefuls and medal-ceremony contenders alike, these are important times to be speed checking against rivals and staying current with the state-of-the-art in one's respective class. Enter the 55th Trofeo Princesa Sofia Mallorca by FERGUS Hotels (March 27 to April 4), which just wrapped up on the Mediterranean waters off of Mallorca, Spain, and which delivered highly competitive racing across 10 Olympic classes.
All told, the regatta involved more than 1,100 sailors, from 62 countries, while also serving as the first event of the 2026 Sailing Grand Slam.
These may still be early days in the 2028 Olympic cycle, but the results were encouraging for North American sailors.
Canadian sisters Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance took home a gold medal in the highly competitive 49erFX class. The Lewin-LaFrance sisters finished their regatta with 46 total points, beating out German and Spanish teams that finished in second and third place (respectively) with 47 points apiece. (N.B., the fourth-place Swedish team finished with 48 points.)
"It feels amazing," said Antonia and Georgia Lewin-LaFrance in an official team communication. "We've been coming here for the last five years or so and we've always looked up to our competitors who have won this event. It's really a cool feeling and an honor to be amongst them this time."
In the always-competitive 49er class, Americans Nevin Snow and Ian MacDiarmid finished in second place with 38 total points, astern of Germany's Richard Schultheis and Fabian Rieger, who took home a gold medal with 33 points.
In the Men's iQFOiL, Noah Lyons, who represented the USA at the Paris 2024 Olympics, also took home a proud silver medal. Lyons finished the regatta with 134 total points, eight points astern of France's Nicolas Goyard, who took home a gold with 126 points.
Other top-ten performances included Americans Charlotte Rose, who took sixth place in the ILCA 6 class, Noah Runciman, who took fourth in the Men's Formula Kite, and Daniela Moroz, who finished in sixth place in the Women's formula Kite.
"This event proved to be an excellent test for our sailors, with changing conditions each day demanding adaptability and focus," said Molly Vandemoer, who serves as US Sailing's Director of Olympic Sailing. "The American team showed up in force, with just under 50 athletes competing across the fleets. Heading into the final day with medal contention in five fleets is an impressive achievement—and a strong of sign of what's to come."
Sail-World tips our hat to these great performances, both by North American and international sailors and teams.
Switching gears from Olympic class racing to the Caribbean circuit, last weekend saw racing unfurl at the 2026 St. Thomas International Regatta (April 3-5), which was hosted by the St. Thomas Yacht Club. Racing took place in Hobie Waves, IC24s, Sunfish, and the CSA Spinnaker Racing class.
Amongst the big boats that were competing in this latter class, Ron O'Hanley's Cookson 50 Privateer beat out Enrique Figueroa's Melges 24 Exodus and Juan Jose Mari's J/100 Freelance to take top honors.
"The first day was all about figuring out the starts due to the disparity of boat speeds in the class," said Tim Dawson, who served as Privateer's tactician, in an official regatta communication. "There was flat water on the first day, but on the second, it got lumpier, which favored us.
"[On Sunday,], we had a clean start in the first race," Dawson continued. "In the final race, a huge rain squall blew through Pillsbury Sound with a 70-degree wind shift and gusts up to 27 knots. We had a gear failure and dropped the spinnaker in the water. It cost us the race, but we had a good enough cushion of a lead to win the class."
Meanwhile, in offshore racing news, the eight teams competing in the GLOBE40 race, which is a doublehanded circumnavigation race that's contested aboard Class40s, began their final leg, which stretches from Recife, Brazil, to Lorient, France, on March 29.
Co-skippers Ian Lipinski and Antoine Carpentier, racing aboard the French-flagged Credit Mutuel, are, at the time of this writing (on Monday Morning, U.S. West Coast time), leading the fleet, with Jonas Gerckens and Benoit Hantzperg, racing aboard Belgium Ocean Racing, some 3.2 nautical miles astern; Lennart Burke and Melwin Fink, racing aboard the German-flagged Next Generation Boating Around the World, are sitting in third place, some 8.2 nautical miles farther astern.
North American interests are being represented by Melodie Schaffer and Colin Campbell, who are racing aboard the Canadian-flagged Whisky Jack, which is currently sitting in eighth place, about 273 nautical miles astern of Lipinski and Carpentier aboard Credit Mutuel.
But, with some 2,600 nautical miles separating Credit Mutuel's bow from the finishing line, and with the top three boats within almost 10 nautical miles of each other, expect plenty of hard fighting as teams push up the North Atlantic towards France.
Looking ahead, next weekend will see SailGP racing unfurl at the Enel Rio Sail Grand Prix (April 11-12). This event marks the first time that SailGP will bring its fleet of foiling F50 catamarans to South America. (N.B., SailGP had planned a stop in Rio in 2025, but this was cancelled due to boat breakage at the preceding San Francisco event.)
Given the popularity of the hometown Mubadala Brazil SailGP Team, which is led by double Olympic Gold medalist Martine Grael, who is the professional sailing league's only female driver, sailing fans can expect a warm and well-attended welcome at this long-awaited event.
May the four winds blow you safely home.
David Schmidt
Sail-World.com North American Editor