The Foil Weekly Wrap - 11 May '26

This week we lost one of the most colourful characters yachting has ever produced, watched a British skipper announce himself as a serious Vendée Globe contender, and seen the next generation of foilers set Lake Garda alight, among quite a bit else besides…

Ted Turner has died aged 87. The Ohio-born, Savannah-raised sailor made his name on the water long before he made it on television. There were Flying Dutchman class titles, a world championship in the same boat in 1965 and another in the 5.5 Metre in 1970, before he turned his attention to big boats. He skippered American Eagle to a Fastnet Race record in 1971, won the Sydney Hobart on both line honours and handicap in 1972, and triumphed in the tragic 1979 Fastnet aboard his own 61-footer Tenacious.

Then came the America's Cup: having been dismissed from the Mariner camp two years earlier, Turner skippered Courageous to a 4–0 defence against Alan Bond's Australia in 1977. Bob Fisher dubbed him Captain Courageous; the wider world had long since christened him the Mouth of the South. Four-time Rolex Yachtsman of the Year, 500+ major trophies, and CNN and Cartoon Network to boot. Ted was one of a kind.

Sam Goodchild has chalked up his fourth IMOCA win and his first as a soloist, riding MACIF Santé Prévoyance to a comfortable victory in the 1000 Race off Concarneau. The 36-year-old from Falmouth led almost from the gun over the five-day course out of Port-la-Forêt up to the Fastnet Rock and back south to a turning point 150 miles north of Cape Finisterre – and by the finish he had a 100-mile cushion on France's Corentin Horeau in second on MACSF.

This was Goodchild's first taste of solo competition aboard the Verdier-designed boat that delivered Charlie Dalin's Vendée Globe in 2024, and the overall impression was of a sailor with the whole race in hand: a contrarian southerly call at the Trophée Gallimard waypoint that paid out in more breeze and fewer manoeuvres, a smooth push in the stronger conditions, and a leisurely seven hours of sleep on Day 4.

Watching from shore, Team Malizia's Will Harris reckons Goodchild already belongs in the small group of genuine Vendée Globe favourites – which, with the next edition still two years away and a new Verdier IMOCA in build for early next year, should have the rest of the fleet paying close attention. Worth keeping half an eye on Violette Dorange, too: third on her first solo outing on the new Initiatives-Coeur.

Takashi Okura's Sled have got the 52 Super Series season off to a flying start in Puerto Portals, finishing the regatta as they finished 2025: first across the line.

The win-it-or-lose-it moment didn't come from the afterguard of Murray Jones, Francesco Bruni and Andrea Visintini, but from bowman Ivan Peute, who hauled himself up the mast 12 minutes before the final race start to lash a mainsail head that had come undone, sliding back to the deck with under two minutes to the gun. A first and a third in 25-knot Bay of Palma breeze did the rest.

Behind Sled, Harm Müller-Spreer's Platoon Aviation rediscovered some of their world-championship-winning form to take second, while Pieter Heerema's No Way Back – making its Super Series debut on the boat that raced as American Magic Quantum Racing last year, with 75% of the winning crew including tactician Terry Hutchinson on board – came third. The biggest tumble was Ergin Imre's Provezza, three-point overnight leaders who posted a seventh and a fourteenth on the final day to drop to fourth.

Full results here. Next up is the TP52 Worlds in Porto Cervo, 15-20 June.

In the Bay of Naples, the offshore race of the ORC Worlds 2026 – the 71st Regata dei Tre Golfi – went the way of Andrew Berdon's American TP52 Summer Storm, which collected line honours and the Class 0 corrected-time win in one tidy sweep.

Tactician Joachim Aschenbrenner, with multiple Volvo Ocean Race winner Stu Bannantyne on board, made the call of the night: when a transition from north-easterly to south-westerly winds opened up around 10am, several rivals tracked Ischia and Procida to starboard while Summer Storm went the other way and rolled into more pressure with a Code Zero as the breeze rebuilt to near 20 knots.

In Class A, Nicola De Gemmis's Swan 42 Morgan V took the spoils with former Finn sailor Filippo Baldassarri among the crew; in Class B, Stefano Rusconi's Italia 11.98 To Be was first home with Olympic Star sailor Afonso Domingos calling tactics. With the offshore race now completed, inshore racing for the world titles runs from today to Thursday. Full results here.

Lake Garda's iQFOiL Youth & Junior International Games at Torbole wrapped up with a Medal Series shoot-out and four new junior and youth champions. The Netherlands' Finn Brüll took the Under-19 Men's after needing both finals to see off Poland's Gustaw Trybek, while Israel's Alba Klein held firm at the top of the Under-19 Women's.

Germany's Moritz Schleicher won the Under-17 Boys' from Czech sailor Frantisek Burda, and Poland's Marta Gajdzinska beat the Netherlands' Anna Jannieke Korevaar in a tight Under-17 Girls' final. Italy made it a clean sweep across the Under-15 categories on home water. Full results here.

This week's must-watch is a full-race replay from the Semaine Olympique Française that happens to make a pretty compelling point about sailing coverage in the process.

It’s not a livestream, but it shows you don’t need to broadcast live to give viewers the feel of live racing. A collaboration between Sailing Energy and Adam Sims at AALVAA Media, the replay includes raw onboard footage, FPV drone work, sweeping aerials, long-lens tracking from the water and clean on-screen graphics that let you properly follow what's happening.

The Foil's own Andy Rice commentates race 13 of the Nacra 17 elimination series:

And if you enjoyed that, the final race has commentary from SailGP's Stevie Morrison alongside Olympic champion Odile van Aanholt. There's a question in there for SailGP and the rest of the sailing world: live isn't always the only option, and a high-end edit can deliver some of the best coverage at a fraction of the cost.

This year's 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 World Championships kick off in Quiberon on Tuesday and run through to Sunday's medal races, with the cream of skiff and foiling-cat sailing fighting for the Olympic-class titles. The 49er YouTube channel will be showing the livestream from Friday to Sunday, and a tracker is running daily for the rest. Andy Rice is there all week, so keep an eye on The Foil for regular updates as the fleet sorts itself out.

While the Olympic sailors are launching off Quiberon, the Etchells Worlds get under way this week (11-15 May) off San Diego. Seventy-six boats from 11 countries are in town for the West Coast return of an event last held in the US in 2011, and the line-up includes at least 26 former Etchells World Champions, around a dozen Olympians and several America's Cup winners. Light, subtle conditions are forecast for the early skirmishes off Point Loma, with a steadier seabreeze due to settle in later in the week.