The week in racing - 12 Oct ’26

It’s been a good week to be Italian on the water, from Furio Benussi’s fourth Barcolana win on the bounce to foiling titles in Cádiz and Sardinia. Elsewhere, Platoon Aviation sealed the 52 Super Series in Valencia, and Lake Garda turned it on for a barnstorming Switch Globals.

Harm Müller-Spreer and his Platoon Aviation crew are 52 Super Series champions again, and unlike in 2023, when they pipped Provezza on a tie-break, there was nothing marginal about it this time. Arriving in Valencia with an 11-point cushion over Takashi Okura’s Sled, Platoon left 30 points clear, third at the finale proving plenty while Sled struggled in the light, fickle sea breeze and finished eighth. Having Jordi Calafat and Juan Vila aboard – Alinghi Cup winners on these same waters in 2007 – can’t have hurt, and tactician Vasco Vascotto celebrated his 57th birthday with a fifth series title.

It’s been a slow burn for Platoon’s current boat. Launched for the 2024 season, it took a while to come good, and last year’s fifth place came with Müller-Spreer sitting out two regattas and the team missing Calafat’s input. A new keel and further updates this season have turned it into one of the quickest boats in the fleet.

“This is such a big honour to win in a fleet like this against all these great professionals, all these super advanced teams and a record fleet of 16 boats on the start lines here,” said Müller-Spreer. “And here we are winning after a long, long season with so many ups and downs, a few material breakdowns, not good for results, some mistakes, but here to be on the top of the podium that’s really a big honour to win against all these America’s Cup heroes.”

The regatta itself went to Andrea Lacorte’s Alkedo Cetilar, an event win in only the team’s second season that also lifted it to third overall, making them one to watch for 2027. “This is so much ahead of our expectations,” said Lacorte. “The crew has done such an excellent job and Cam [Appleton, Alkedo’s tactician] has worked magic all week. We have the best team! And winning an event in just the second year is something I would never, ever have believed.”

Sled, meanwhile, missed out on the double but still have a world title to show for the season. “We are disappointed with the way it went here but we are happy with second overall, world champions and being on the podium at three of five events,” said Sled project manager Don Cowie. “And I’m told we have been on the podium at seven of the last ten regattas. It has been a very successful campaign for the Sled team and for Mr Okura. We are disappointed to have sailed the way we did today. But we have had a great time over the years, winning five races in a row in Porto Cervo in 2019, that was a real highlight with Mr Okura driving and winning the last regatta of last season.” Full results here.

The World Sailing Inclusion Championships drew an impressive 222 athletes from 40 nations to Portimão for its second edition. Poland’s Piotr Cichocki was the standout, edging out Germany’s Jens Kroker in the singlehanded Hansa 303 before teaming up with his wife, Joanna Cichocka, to win the doublehanded event too. The pair will defend both titles on home waters next year, when the championships head to Gdynia.

The nerviest finish came in the RS Venture Connect, where Sweden’s Fia Fjelddahl and Patric Rosenberg saw a ten-point lead cut to two and only took gold on countback. “We knew that we just had to have one boat between us and Spain, and we had one boat between us and Spain,” said Fjelddahl. “And then, on the last upwind, another boat came in between us. So stressful! … Suddenly Austria was sailing so fast that they came in front of Spain, and we had the gold! Thank you, Austria!”

Great Britain took the Nations Trophy, helped by James Coxon’s comeback win in the Challenger multihull and Lucy Hodges’ crew retaining their Vision Impairment title. “The ultimate goal really was to get more countries involved, and we’ve done that,” said Hodges. “All I want to do is keep growing the number of countries taking part.”

Coxon led a British clean sweep of the multihull podium. Elsewhere, Finland’s Marko Dahlberg led the 2.4mR from day one, with his son Otto second, while Hong Kong’s Tsz Hin Cheung and Portugal’s José Campos took the intellectual and cognitive impairment titles respectively. Full results here.

Lake Garda saved its best for last at the Switch Global Championship, serving up an 18–20 knot Pelèr in the morning and a building Ora after lunch. For Paul Hameeteman, it was a nervy finale. The Dutchman slipped to 13th in race 9 as Denmark’s Magnus Overbeck won to close the gap, and he even fell out of his boat in a tack while trying to match race the Dane before the next start. Yet Hameeteman won the next two to wrap up the title with a race to spare, six points clear of Overbeck, with Italy’s Massimiliano Antoniazzi third. New Zealand’s Sean Herbert opened the day with his first race win of the event, and the home club’s Mattia Cesana took the last one as the Ora built.

“I think the Switch is the best boat around,” said Hameeteman. “You can see it in the calibre of the sailors with people from America’s Cup, SailGP, the top of Olympic sailing, as well as people just enjoying the racing, coming together here and sailing these boats. Everyone has the same boat, so you know it’s the sailor, not the gear. Racing in Lake Garda is always a pleasure, so for me this is the best thing in the world.”

Malta’s Antonia Schultheis was dominant, finishing first in ten of the 12 women’s races, ahead of Denmark’s Camilla Svensson and the USA’s Pearl Lattanzi. “Honestly I’ve never really been a fan of strong wind,” said Schultheis. “But since I’ve been sailing the Switch I really enjoy the wind because it also gives you the chance to be up there with the boys since you have a little bit lighter body weight but then also a little bit smaller sail so it doesn’t slow you down, so yeah, I’m having a blast here.”

With Olympians and pros racing alongside club sailors, the Switch is building quite a following. British ILCA 7 Olympian and 2x European champ Micky Beckett was among them, finishing 30th, while the America One Racing squad led by executive director Leandro Spina came over in force, chartering several boats and bringing its own sails, wings and spars.

“It’s been extremely fun – some of the best racing I’ve ever done,” said Olympic 470 bronze medallist and former Spain SailGP driver Jordi Xammar. “It’s been really cool to watch the class growing so much … I think it’s an incredible boat. It’s extremely well built and I think sailing has missed a boat like this, because it’s extremely high speed and relatively simple for good sailing. Once you try it, you always want more! I have to now focus on my Olympic campaign, because it’s less than two years away, but every time I have a break I’m gonna come Switch sailing.” Full results here.

The Barcolana once again belongs to Furio Benussi. Racing in his 50th edition of the world’s biggest regatta, the veteran helmsman steered Arca SGR to a fourth straight win in a fleet of 1,858 boats, and did it despite a systems failure that left Arca dead in the water just as the start gun fired.

Once under way in an unusually easterly Bora, Arca led round the first mark 18 minutes in and was never caught. The last leg from Miramare turned into a rare upwind slog in 12 knots, but Arca still crossed the line just over an hour after starting, three and a half minutes clear of the rest.

“It was a wonderful Barcolana, with some truly unusual conditions,” said Benussi. “Our tactical decision was to start from the section of the line closest to the first mark: on a starting line almost three and a half kilometres long, that position allows you to sail around 300 metres less. The wind was very unstable, constantly shifting between 90 and 120 degrees, and we expected it to veer to the right. So we decided to start from there and try to keep the fleet under control. I can hardly remember ever sailing a course from Miramare to Trieste entirely upwind, tacking in 12 knots of breeze. Despite the forecasts over the previous days, it turned out to be a spectacular day, one that truly fills your heart.”

Behind Arca, his daughter Marta spent the whole race locked in a duel with Mitja Kosmina’s Prosecco DOC Schockwave3. Kosmina held on for second, but Marta Benussi brought Marta 07 home third to take the Generali Women in Sailing Trophy for a second time, a proud day for the Benussi family. Where else do 100-footers and family cruisers share the same start line? Here’s to many more. Full results here.

Already European and world champion this year, Lauriane Nolot added the Sardinia Grand Slam to her collection on Poetto Beach. The French kitefoiler tacked into the lead at the top mark of the women’s final and was never troubled, with training partner Lysa Caval second overall and Israel’s Maya Ashkenazi third. The knockout format is unforgiving: three riders were bounced out of the women’s quarter-final for crossing the line early, among them Svetlana Trusova, who only discovered she’d been disqualified after winning the race on the water.

Riccardo Pianosi’s path to victory in a gusty 18–23 knot offshore Mistral was more of a rollercoaster. The local rider looked to be cruising in the men’s final until a botched tack on the second beat dropped him off the foil, letting Noah Runciman and Flavio Marx come past. But Pianosi gybed first for the finish, laid the mark without any extra manoeuvres and pipped the American at the line. Vojtech Koska took second on the strength of his qualifying despite jumping the start in the final, with Marx third and Runciman fourth.

The medal series was livestreamed with commentary from The Foil’s Andy Rice. Next stop is the Worlds in Fortaleza in January, with eight nation places for LA 2028 at stake. Full results: men and women. 

Prize money is rare enough in dinghy racing that the WASZP deserves a nod for its All-Stars format alone – 16 invited sailors, eight men and eight women, sharing eight boats with quick-fire changeovers, no discards and €5,000 apiece for the two winners. Nothing for anyone else.

In Cádiz, it turned into an Italian double. Francesco Carrieri won the men’s 8.2 fleet with a clear margin over Spain’s Antonio Gasperini and France’s Hippolyte Gruet, while Olivia Castaldi kept her cool in a tightly fought women’s 7.5 fleet to finish on 33 points, ahead of Spain’s Sol López Navarro and Sweden’s Elsa Aronsson.

Thirteen races per fleet were packed into two days, with the Cádiz sea breeze eventually filling in on Sunday after a slow start. With the 2027 WASZP Games heading to Lake Garda, the hosts now look like the ones to beat. Full results here.

Saint-Tropez, France – racing 14-17 October

The Cape 31 has grown fast since it first took off in the UK, and this week the class gets its first standalone international showdown. The inaugural Cape 31 Gold Cup brings 28 teams to Saint-Tropez, the biggest Cape 31 fleet ever, with crews from France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Monaco, the Netherlands, Austria, Hungary, Portugal and Türkiye.

The big names are all there. Alessandro Rombelli’s Stig, winner of last year’s Europeans in Palma, lines up against Christian Schwoerer’s La Pericolosa, the 2024 European champion, and Guy Gillon’s Khumbu, fresh from winning this year’s UK Nationals. Any of the three would make a fitting first name on the trophy. But in a fleet this deep, with four days of racing at one of the Med’s great regatta venues, don’t rule out an upset. See full entry list.

Royal Bermuda Yacht Club, Hamilton – 14-18 October

King Edward VII handed out the Gold Cup in 1907, making it the world’s oldest match racing trophy for one-design keelboats, and Sweden’s Johnie Berntsson has grown attached to it. Having whitewashed Ian Williams 3–0 in last year’s final, he’s now chasing an unprecedented fourth straight win. It would also be his sixth title overall, one shy of Sir Russell Coutts’ record.

It won’t come easily. The field has grown to 12 and now puts the leading men and women in one combined event. Chris Poole, world No. 1 for most of this year, and Switzerland’s Eric Monnin head the challenge, alongside top women Pauline Courtois and Anna Östling. There’s a big change of kit too: after decades in the classic International One Designs, the Gold Cup switches to a brand-new fleet of FarEast 28Rs, the boat already used at Tour stops such as Macao and Marstrand. That could shake things up on this penultimate stop of the World Match Racing Tour. See full entry list.

Grand Harbour, Valletta, Malta – starts Saturday 17 October

Saturday sees the 47th Rolex Middle Sea Race set sail from Valletta’s Grand Harbour, and it’s one of the most scenic of the great offshore classics. The 606-mile anticlockwise lap of Sicily takes the fleet up through the Strait of Messina, round the volcanic island of Stromboli and out past the Aeolian and Aegadian islands, before the long leg home via Pantelleria and Lampedusa.

Pretty it may be, but easy it isn’t. October in the central Med can deliver a savage blow one day and a glassy calm the next, so the navigators really earn their keep. For the quickest boats, getting round inside 48 hours counts as a cracking run, while most of the fleet will expect to be out there for three to six days.

That unpredictability makes the race a great leveller, as Paul Cayard knows. The Whitbread winner has raced all three of Rolex’s big blue-water classics. “At events like the Rolex Middle Sea Race, it does not matter how experienced you are or what you have won previously,” said Cayard. “Each edition is a new experience. There is an honesty or purity that comes with that – either you match up or you do not. Whether you win or lose, these races are an opportunity to learn valuable lessons about teamwork, resilience and dealing with constant change.”

So who to watch? Louis Balcaen’s Balthasar returns to defend last year’s overall win, while Justin and Christina Wolfe’s Red Ruby – pipped to the overall prize by just 24 seconds in 2023, when it raced double-handed – comes back four-up. Joining the Wolfes are 1984 Olympic Flying Dutchman champions Jonathan McKee and Carl Buchan, the latter also part of Dennis Conner’s America’s Cup-winning Stars & Stripes crew in 1988. See full entry list.