New world champions in the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17

By Sunday evening on Quiberon Bay, the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 fleets had served up a clean sweep of first-time world champions. All three titles were still live going into medal day, and between the fickle French breeze and a new finals format built to squeeze the week's accumulated points right down for the closing 10-boat shootout, nothing was settled the easy way.

Check out the full race replays for Day 4 / Day 5 / Medal Day.

Pia Dahl Andersen and Nora Edland are the new 49erFX world champions, prising the title out of Spanish hands by a single point on Norway's national day, no less.

Going into the medal race, the Norwegians were level on points with reigning champions Paula Barceló and Maria Cantero, and whoever finished ahead in that final race would take the gold. Andersen and Edland won it. Barceló and Cantero head home with a silver, and will probably replay that final race for a while.

Bronze went to Poland's Aleksandra Melzacka and Sandra Jankowiak, who had begun the day in eighth and threaded the medal race well enough to bump last year's bronze medallists, Canada's Lewin-LaFrance sisters, off the podium.

Seb Menzies and George Lee Rush somehow walked off with the men's 49er title after one of the more chaotic medal-day finishes the class has seen – and at just 21, the Kiwi pair are now the youngest world champions the class has produced.

The duo had led the standings since day four and looked nailed on for gold once they'd taken the opener of the two-race medal series. Then it all got interesting. A scrappy start in the second race left them deep in the fleet, and with the gold suddenly back in play the chasers smelled blood – Australia's Harry Price and Max Paul, still hovering in second overall, plus Keanu Prettner and Jakob Flachberger (AUT), three-time world champions Bart Lambriex and Floris van de Werken (NED), and Jakob Meggendorfer and Andreas Spranger (GER), all in striking distance as the breeze turned shifty and on-off.

By the final windward mark the Kiwis were nowhere near the front and the gold looked like it was going to a European crew. Then, somehow, they peeled off on a gybe-set, picked up a fresh patch of pressure and rode it the length of the run, sneaking just high enough up the order to hang on to gold.

Menzies is also sailing as port helm for Emirates Team New Zealand on their AC38 campaign, and heads straight from Quiberon to Cagliari this week to link up with the Kiwi squad for the first preliminary regatta of the Cup cycle.

Spare a thought for the Dutch. Lambriex and van de Werken came into Quiberon as three-time 49er world champions hunting a fourth, and the obvious team to fear – until Lambriex fumbled a trapeze-height adjustment on day five and pinged himself clean off the ring and into the water while leading race 12. The resulting capsize buried them 14 points off the lead heading into the final day. Austria’s Prettner and Flachberger took silver, with the Dutch left to scrap their way back for bronze.

Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei have finally got their hands on a Nacra 17 world title, twelve years into sailing together. The Italians took an eight-point lead into the medal day and then promptly made life hard for themselves. Convinced they'd jumped the start gun, they turned around to dip back behind the line alonside both Swedish boats and had to grind their way back through the fleet from there.

But when others were still rattling between low-riding or one hull up, the Italians slipped into a clean foiling rhythm and made the boat do everything they needed it to – Quiberon's gear-change day if ever there was one.

Local heroes Tim Mourniac and Aloise Retornaz held on for silver on home water, much to the delight of a Quiberon crowd that had turned out in force. Britain's John Gimson and Anna Burnet, the defending champions, were left with bronze.

Six days on Quiberon Bay served up just about every wind and sea state the Bay of Biscay can throw at a fleet, including a properly nasty day three of heavy air and steep chop that pushed race officials and sailors equally to the limit. The Olympic cat and skiff fleets now turn to the Europeans in Eckernförde, from 7-12 July, with three first-time world champions on the start line.

Full fleet results can be found here.