The week in racing - 10 August ‘26

This week saw the Olympic fleets sign off a globe-trotting season on LA's 2028 waters, both New Zealand and France back in their AC75s, plus the start of a 1,805-mile epic around Britain and Ireland. Let’s get into it!

The San Pedro OCR concluded on Saturday, the skiffs and Nacras scrapping on the same patch of LA water they'll be back on come 2028. Six medal races in flat water and a puffy 16–20 knots, and everyone with a yellow bib on the final day held their nerve to convert it.

In the 49er, Germany's Richard Schultheis and Fabian Rieger sealed gold, ahead of Britain's James Grummett and Rhos Hawes, with Uruguay's Hernán Umpierre and Fernando Diz third. Sweden's Vilma Bobeck and Ebba Berntsson had the 49erFX sewn up by a comfortable 17 points, well ahead of Paula Barcelo and Maria Cantero taking silver for Spain and Britain’s Freya Black and Saskia Tidey. Meanwhile the Nacra 17 went right down to the wire: Swedes Emil Järudd and Hanna Jonsson clung on by a single point from the relentless British pair of John Gimson and Anna Burnet, with Dutch duo Willemijn Offerman and Scipio Houtman in third.

That's it for the 2026 Sailing Grand Slam – keep an eye out for our full season wrap coming soon. Full results here.

Cowes Week celebrated its 200th birthday last week, and the Solent laid on a bit of everything across seven days – a 20-knot opener, a rained-on Wednesday, near-30-knot gusts that sent the smaller boats home early, and a glassy, tactical finale. All told, the week featured 641 boats, more than 5,000 sailors, across 43 classes.

In X One Design, overall honours went to Lone Star, sailed by Phil Lawrence, David King and Nick Froud, who found the near-impossible consistency to win the biggest and most cut-throat class in the fleet – no mean feat against 59 rivals. “We were just blisteringly fast all week,” Lawrence said of how they did it. Hong Kong's Karl Kwok took the big-boat silverware, his TP52 Beau Geste reeling off six straight bullets to sweep IRC Class Zero and pocket both the Britannia Cup and the New York Yacht Club Challenge Cup.

The bicentenary threw up a brand-new prize, the Bicentenary Gold Cup, claimed by Andy Maskell's Contessa 33 High Spirit. The Black Group went to the last race, Ben Rogers' Contessa 32 Solan Goose just pipping Sam Laidlaw's Quarter Tonner BLT. And after a 50-year absence, the Folkboats were back as a class, Gybe N' taking the win for Cy Grisley and Simon Evans. Check results across all classes here.

Last week Emirates Team New Zealand rolled out their AC75 in Auckland for the first time in two months, kicking off a fortnight of mid-winter testing. With Nathan Outteridge, Andy Maloney, Iain Jensen and Jo Aleh in their usual slots – and Chris Draper back on second helm while Seb Menzies was off racing the 49er in LA – the opening day appeared to be all about straight-line speed rather than manoeuvres. The boat looked quick and settled, up on the foils without much fuss, the sense being of a team fine-tuning what they've got rather than chasing anything flashy.

The French, meanwhile, will be breathing a lot easier than they were a month ago. That low-speed capsize, which flooded key electrical systems and sent up a worrying cloud of smoke, had threatened to stall the whole campaign, so getting back on the water and stringing together a proper, clean day on the foils is exactly what was needed. It seems they’ve made the most of being back: a cautious re-commissioning sail was followed by their longest session spent foiling of the campaign yet, including an opening run of around 35 minutes up and flying. On this evidence, the wobble of a month ago looks well behind them.

Newcomer Maelenn Lemaitre – a multiple women's match-racing world champion drafted in barely a month ago – was still buzzing (and, by her own admission, slightly fried) after a day soaking up data, while 2025 Moth world champion Enzo Balanger added more firepower to a strong mixed crew. The team reckon the enforced downtime has let them settle into a slower, more deliberate rhythm, and while they trail the Kiwis and Italians on water time, they're comfortably ahead of the other three challengers, who have yet to launch their AC75s.

In Aarhus, Denmark 448 young sailors from more than 50 nations took part in the ILCA 4 Youth World Championship for a windy, sun-soaked week on the bay. Greece's Eleni Triantou took the girls' title on her Worlds debut, holding it together on a nervy last day to seal the win. In the boys' fleet, Switzerland's Leo Gosling was a clear winner – the biggest result of his young career. “I'm lost for words. It's not my first title, but this is definitely the biggest moment in my sailing career so far,” the 15-year-old said after. And he's not done yet, sticking around to line up in next week's ILCA 6 Youth Worlds at the same venue. Full results here.

Starting today, the 470s convene in Enoshima, Japan – the Tokyo 2020 venue, all thermal breeze and tricky tides – for a record 74-boat fleet drawn from 28 nations. Spain's Jordi Xammar arrives chasing a hat-trick of world titles alongside Marta Cardona, but he'll have his work cut out. Britain's Martin Wrigley and Bettine Harris are the form crew of the year, having swept the Europeans, World Cup wins in Palma and Hyères and, just a couple of weeks ago, the San Pedro OCR on the LA 2028 waters. Germany's Simon Diesch and Anna Markfort, last year's runners-up, and Sweden's returning Paris 2024 bronze medallists Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Lindner round out a fearsome shortlist. “It's really nice to be back in Japan,” said Wrigley. “We're really excited to try and put everything together for the biggest event of the year.”

Qualifying runs from 12–13 August, the fleet splits into Gold and Silver from the 14th, and the top ten settle it in the medal race on the 17th.

Stockholm hosts the Team Racing World Championship from 12–16 August, the first time the competition has come to Europe. It’ll take place right in the heart of the city on Riddarfjärden, in the shadow of City Hall, on a course barely 380 metres across. Twelve nations and 96 sailors will go at it in matched J/80s, two boats a side, in a mixed-crew format built on close-quarters manoeuvring, clever use of dirty air and the right-of-way rules, with umpires policing it all in real time. There’ll be well over a hundred short, sharp races across the week, all free to watch from the quaysides.

Defending champions Tim Wadlow and Will Bailey, sailing for the USA, are the crew everyone will have their eyes on. “Racing in J/80s is new for us, so there's been a steep learning curve,” says Bailey. “The races are short, intense and incredibly close. Anyone can win any race, which makes it exciting for sailors and spectators alike.”

The RORC's Round Britain and Ireland Race set off from Cowes on Sunday for its 50th running, 32 boats and 182 sailors heading east into a light Solent breeze. Two hours in, Johnny Vincent's Volvo 70 Pace had nosed to the front, the German Ker 56 Varuna VI a mile back, while in the Class40s there was nothing between Pierre LeBoucher's Penfret and Greg Leonard's Swift. Early days, though – 1,800-odd miles is a very long time to stay in front.

Keep an eye on the IRC Zero heavyweights – Pace, Varuna VI and Antoine Magre's radical scow-bowed Palanad 4 – as they trade blows for line honours and the overall corrected-time prize. “This is probably one of the hardest races out there,” says Magre. The Class40s settle it on elapsed time alone, and the newest scow-bowed designs from Britain, America and France might just threaten the record should the weather oblige. Track the fleet and check live rankings.