2026 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 European Championship at Eckernförde, Germany - Day 5
by 49er and Nacra 17 Sailing 12 Jul 09:46 BST
7-12 July 2026
Protests, Plot Twists and a New Nacra Leader — Everything Set for the Finals
The final day of the elimination series had a slower start than usual. With the breeze forecast to build later in the day, racing was scheduled for a 12:00 start for the Nacra 17 fleet and the 49er and 49erFX Gold fleets — and after a short postponement, the fleets got their full program in: three races each for the skiffs, and four for the Nacra 17s.
And what a day it was. The leaderboards were shaken in every class, the jury had a busy evening, and Sunday's Finals — just two races, with all scores now adjusted so that no boat carries a gap bigger than 9 points — promise a genuinely open fight for every title.
49er: Menzies & Rush Survive a Wobble to Keep the Yellow Jersey
It was a tougher day at the office for Seb Menzies and George Lee Rush — a 15, 10, 8 by their standards counts as a wobble — but the World Champions did enough to carry the yellow jersey into the Finals, eight points clear of James Grummett and Rhos Hawes. The Brits could not quite find the scores to retake the lead they held for most of the week, but with the Finals format compressing everything, they are very much still in this. Poland's Mikolaj Staniul and Jakub Sztorch closed their day with a 4th to sit third, just two points further back.
The home crowd had plenty to cheer: Richard Schultheis and Fabian Rieger put together an impressive Gold fleet scoreline — a 10, 5, 2 — to climb to fourth, leapfrogging Mattias Coutts and Oscar Gunn, whose tricky day dropped the young Kiwis to fifth.
Uruguay's Hernán Umpierre and Fernando Diz opened the day with a bullet to sit sixth, and Spain's Wizner brothers, Martin and Jaime, produced a superb 2, 1 in the first two races to surge to seventh. Sébastien Schneiter and Arno de Planta, Robert Dickson and Seán Waddilove, and Italy's Lorenzo Pezzilli and Tobia Torroni — who grabbed the final ticket with a 2nd place in the middle race — complete the ten boats going through to Sunday's Finals.
The 49er fleet kept the jury busy too, with four hearings from the day's opening race — three of them involving the German boat of Schultheis and Rieger, who protested both the Swiss and an Italian boat over separate right-of-way incidents, while Schneiter and de Planta counter-protested the Germans over contact during the start procedure, and a Swedish crew protested Elliott Wells and Freddie Lonsdale over contact at a mark. In the end, the decisions produced only minor adjustments to the Race 12 scores, and the ten finalists are unchanged and confirmed.
49erFX: Drama Everywhere — On the Water and in the Protest Room
Where to begin. The final day of the FX elimination series had everything: big moves, big collapses, and a stack of protest flags.
Start at the top, where Georgia and Antonia Lewin-LaFrance did exactly what champions do. The Canadians posted a 3, 1, 1 — their best day of the week at the perfect moment — to head into the Finals as clear leaders. Not that the scoreboard margin matters much now: a 34-point cushion on the water has been compressed to exactly 9 by the Finals adjustment. What does matter is the form, and right now nobody is sailing better.
Behind them, the German fans finally got their moment: Marla Bergmann and Hanna Wille opened the day with a bullet and climbed to second overall, with France's Mathilde Lovadina and Lou Berthomieu — who just keep climbing — right behind in third after yet another superb day. Poland's Aleksandra Melzacka and Sandra Jankowiak slipped from second to fourth, and Sophie Steinlein and Catherine Bartelheimer gave Germany a second boat in the top five with a strong 7, 3, 2.
And then there is the fall of the Italians. Jana Germani and Giorgia Bertuzzi, who led this championship for days, have endured a brutal 48 hours — a disqualification, a retirement, and a string of deep results have dropped them all the way to eighth. They make the Finals, but the team that looked untouchable on Wednesday now needs a miracle on Sunday. In happier Italian news, Sofia Giunchiglia and Giulia Schio sit sixth, ahead of World Champions Pia Dahl Andersen and Nora Edland in seventh. The 2024 European Champions Isaura Maenhaut and Anouk Geurts slip to ninth after a jury-room DSQ (more below), and there is a lovely story in tenth, where Denmark's Schmidt sisters, Johanne and Andrea, held on to the final Finals spot.
Britain's Freya Black and Saskia Tidey, who crashed out of the top 10 on a nightmare afternoon — and the jury room made it worse. Of the two protests lodged against GBR 24 from Race 15, one (from Melzacka and Jankowiak) was withdrawn, but the jury upheld Gabriela Czapska and Hanna Rajchert's protest over contact at the gate, disqualifying the British pair from the race. There was also a costly decision for the 2024 European Champions: the jury upheld Katharina Schwachhofer and Elena Stoltze's protest from Race 14, and the resulting DSQ drops Maenhaut and Geurts from eighth to ninth — one place, but with the Finals adjustment compressing the points, every position matters. The German pair's second protest, against an American boat, was dismissed. With the recalculated scores now published, the ten finalists are confirmed.
Nacra 17: The Dutch Finally Blink — and the Swedes Pounce
For four days, Willemijn Offerman and Scipio Houtman looked untouchable. Today, across four races, the Baltic finally caught up with them. A deep result they could discard, followed by an 11, 9, 11 — comfortably their worst day of the week — opened the door, and Sweden's Emil Järudd and Hanna Jonsson charged straight through it. The Princess Sofía overall winners posted a 2 and a 3 in the heart of the day and now lead the European Championship on 62 points heading into the Finals.
John Gimson and Anna Burnet smell blood too. The reigning European Champions bookended their four-race day with two bullets to sit second on 66, with the Dutch now third on 69. Three boats, seven points — and with the Finals adjustment tightening it all further, Sunday's two-race showdown between these three could hardly be set up better.
Behind the leading trio, Brin Liddell and Rhiannan Brown hold fourth ahead of Italy's Federico Figlia di Granara and Caterina Sedmak, while New Zealand's Micah Wilkinson and Kate Stewart took a race win of their own to secure sixth. Tim Mourniac and Aloise Retornaz, Archie Gargett and Sarah Hoffman, Sinem Kurtbay and Alican Kaynar, and Belgium's Lucas Claeyssens and Eline Verstraelen — who held their nerve in the fight for the cut — round out the ten finalists.
Sunday: Two Races. Nine Points. Everything to Play For.
Sunday brings the Finals: two races for each class, with all scores adjusted so that no boat starts more than 9 points from the one ahead. The adjusted standings tell the story of just how open this is. In the 49er, Menzies and Rush carry a lead of 8 over Grummett and Hawes, with Staniul and Sztorch 2 further back. In the FX, the Canadians hold exactly 9 over Bergmann and Wille, with Lovadina and Berthomieu just 1 point behind them. And in the Nacra 17, no adjustment was even needed at the top — Järudd/Jonsson, Gimson/Burnet and Offerman/Houtman start the day 62, 66 and 69, as close as a title fight gets. Whatever has happened this week, the championships will be decided on the water on the final day — and if this event has taught us anything, it is to expect the unexpected.