2026 49er, 49erFX & Nacra 17 World Championship in Quiberon - Overall
by The 49er, 49erFX & Nacra 17 Media Team 17 May 22:11 BST
12-17 May 2026
There were three world titles up for grabs at the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 World Championships, and at the end of Sunday's medal racing there were three brand new world champions.
49erFX: Norway snatch gold from Spain
In the 49erFX women's skiff, Norwegian team Pia Dahl Andersen and Nora Edland won the last race of the afternoon to pull off a one point victory over the 2025 world champions from Spain, Paula Barceló and Maria Cantero. They were equal on points, but by winning the last race, Andersen and Edland came out ahead and won their first-ever 49erFX world title by a single point. And they did it on Norway's national day too.
Barceló and Cantero had to settle for Spanish silver, and Poland's Aleksandra Melzacka and Sandra Jankowiak rose all the way from eighth place at the start of the day to grab the bronze medal, just ahead of last year's bronze medalists from Canada, the Lewin-LaFrance sisters.
49er: New Zealand hang on to gold by skin of their teeth
In the men's 49er, New Zealand's young duo Sam Menzies and George Lee Rush started the day as the team to beat, and when the Kiwis won the first of the two finals races, it looked like they had the gold pretty much in the bag. However, a poor start off the line in the next race put the Kiwis on the back foot and gave them a lot to do.
Now it looked like one of the other teams might be able to snatch the gold. Australia's Harry Price and Max Paul had started the day in second and were the closest threat to the Kiwis. However it was the European teams who came to the fore in the fluky light-to-medium conditions. Would it be Austria's Keanu Prettner and Jakob Flachberger who would come through, or the Dutch three-time world champions Bart Lambriex, Swen de Vos, and Floris van de Werken; or maybe Germany's Jakob Meggendorfer and Andreas Spranger?
Around the final windward mark, the Kiwis were still well back, and it looked almost certain that one of the European teams would be set for gold. But on such an unpredictable racecourse, somehow Menzies and Lee Rush pulled a rabbit out of the hat. Near the back of the fleet at the final mark, they gybe-set in a new gust and carried the new breeze down the final run to the finish and managed to get across the line ahead of just enough boats to hang on to the gold medal.
Prettner and Flachberger ended up winning their first world medal, a silver, with Lambriex and van de Werken taking the bronze.
Nacra 17: Gigi and Maria win a world title 12 years in the making
In the Nacra 17, Italy's Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei started the day with an eight-point lead, which surely would be enough for them to be able to protect the gold from closest rivals, local Quiberon sailors Tim Mourniac and Aloise Retornaz.
However, when the Italians reckoned they had started across the line too soon, they turned back to restart along with the two Swedish teams, and now Italy had to work hard to work their way back into the race and overtake some boats. They managed to find full foiling mode when others were struggling. It was a day when we saw the Nacra 17 go through all the different gear changes from full low riding to one hull out, to two hulls out, and it was changing all the time.
The Italians used all their experience of having sailed together and campaigned together for 12 years to finally win their first-ever world title, ahead of the French, who were ecstatic to take the silver medal on home waters in front of a happy home crowd. And taking second spot just ahead of John Gimson and Anna Burnet, last year's world champions from Great Britain, who this year had to satisfy themselves with the bronze medal.
It was a really good day for the Australian team Archie Gargett and Sarah Hoffman, who earned scores of first and second to lift themselves up from ninth to fourth place overall.
Next Stop: Europeans in Eckernförde
All three world titles were closely contested, due in part to the wildly unpredictable, exciting conditions on Quiberon Bay, which were always changing - with very few discernible patterns on the racecourse. And also, a new finals format which compressed the points gaps from across the week and brought the whole game closer for the final two-race ten-boat day of competition.
There was racing on all six days in a huge variety of conditions, including the high-wind, big-wave day three, which tested competitors and race officials alike. Class Manager Ben Remocker said: "The race committee did a great job this week in challenging conditions. They got as many races done as they could within the class wind limits and delivered a world-class regatta. Congratulations to our three new world champions, and now we look forward to the European Championships in Eckernförde, Germany in a few weeks' time."
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