The week in racing - 13 July '26

Plenty going on across the fleets this week. A sun-soaked Round the Island, three European titles decided ashore, four fresh faces crowned at the iQFOiL Youth Worlds, and a record-breaking offshore epic in Greek waters. Let’s get into it…

The 95th Round the Island Race will go down as one of the good ones. More than 800 boats crowded the Royal Yacht Squadron line on Saturday morning, and the conditions obliged, with warm sun, a steady breeze and hundreds of kites blooming as the fleet streamed off towards The Needles. Pace, Jonny Vincent's boat, was first around the Isle of Wight, stopping the clock at six hours and 32 minutes. “It was hard work going down the mainland shore at the start, and there was a really funky bit around The Needles, which was a bit tricky,” Vincent said. “We stayed pretty close to the Island shore but so nice to head back into the sunshine.” Full results here.

READ MORE: Freddie Carr: My enduring love for the Round The Island Race

Three titles were up for grabs at the 49er, 49erFX & Nacra 17 European Championships, and the Baltic decided none of them on the final day. The week in Eckernförde, Germany had built towards a two-race finale with the fleets bunched tight, then Sunday brought no wind, so Saturday's standings had to stand. Canada's Georgia and Antonia Lewin-LaFrance went back-to-back in the 49erFX, New Zealand's Seb Menzies and George Lee Rush added another 49er crown to a fast-growing collection, and in the Nacra 17 Sweden's Emil Järudd and Hanna Jonsson pounced when the runaway Dutch leaders fell apart on the last day. Check our full wrap here.

The sixth edition of the AEGEAN 600 sent a record fleet away from the Temple of Poseidon at Cape Sounion and straight into the Aegean's full repertoire – screaming Meltemi one moment, dead calm the next, and islands shuffling the pecking order right up until the line.

Prosecco Doc Shockwave 3, Claudio Demartis's 90-footer, took line honours and came within three hours of the course record. On corrected time it was Palanad 4, Antoine Magre's French Mach 50, which took the overall IRC prize, while Jon Desmond's TP52 Final Final claimed the ORC honours. Among the 49 trophies handed out there was a first for the all-female crew on Phileas Fogg, and a debut for Vendée Globe veteran Pip Hare.

“This race is a classic, the course is so different… Many opportunities to change places which keeps the pressure and the intensity up all the way,” Hare said. “Things change in seconds, you have to react. It's back to the roots of sailing in a way, eyes out of the boat and use those ancient learned skills of sailors for years. And why wouldn't you want to look out of the boat? There are so many beautiful things to see here.” Full results here.

Spain’s Costa Brava hosted the iQFOiL Youth & Junior Worlds, and with nearly 400 kids from 36 nations this is where the next wave of Olympic windsurfing talent shows its hand. All four titles came down to knockout medal series, and all four delivered. Italy's Mattia Saoncella held his nerve in a winner-takes-all U19 Men's decider, Taisiia Stopchenko, racing as a neutral athlete (AIN), led her U19 Women's final from gun to gun, and Germany's Moritz Schleicher controlled the U17 Boys throughout. It was the U17 Girls that produced the standout finish, Turkey’s Parla Kabasakal conjuring a downwind burst to nose ahead of Israel's Noa Koren at the finish, and Turkey topped it off by taking the Nations Trophy. Full results here.

Kiel staged a record-breaking 29er Worlds – 276 boats, 35 nations, 552 sailors, the youngest of them not yet 13 – and the title fight lived up to the billing. France, Sweden and Argentina went at it on the final day, the lead swapping hands race by race. Argentina had led for days, but a poor opener on the last day cracked the door and France's Alexandre Mostini and Raphaël Allain barged through it to take the crown, with Sweden's Henric Wigforss and William Drakenberg second and the Argentines third. Denmark's Emmeli Gramkov and Sofie Andersen took the girls' title, the USA's Annie Sitzmann and Anton Schmid won the mixed, and New Zealand carried off the Nations Cup. Full results here.

The 505 World Championship enjoyed a run of near-perfect Solent weather at Hayling Island, and the title was all but wrapped up before the final day even began. Germany's Jan-Philipp Hofmann and Felix Brockerhoff had wrapped up the title across the opening eight races and could put their feet up while everyone else scrapped. There was drama further down the podium, though: Britain's Paul Brotherton and James Fawcett looked to have second sewn up, only to be disqualified after a port-and-starboard protest from the American pair Howie Hamlin and Andy Zinn, dropping them to third. Full results here.

The field is set for the Team Racing World Championship, and for the first time it's coming to Europe. Stockholm hosts from 12–16 August, right in the heart of the city on Riddarfjärden with the town hall as a backdrop and the whole thing free to watch from the bridges and quaysides. Twelve teams from four continents have been confirmed – Australia, the Bahamas, Bermuda, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, the UK and two crews from the USA – racing identical J/80s in what should be well over a hundred short, sharp matches. “The races are short, intense and incredibly close,” says Will Bailey, defending Corinthian champion. “Anyone can win any race, which makes it exciting for sailors and spectators alike.” It's also one of sailing's most mixed formats: every eight-strong squad has to field at least three women and three men.

Gdynia is up and running with a test event for the 2027 World Sailing Championships, the dress rehearsal for a regatta that will double as a major LA28 qualifier. It's a chance for the organisers to shake down the courses and race management, and for sailors to get an early read of the local water. Keep an eye on the wingfoilers, too: they've been chosen as the invited class for 2027, and don't be too surprised if wingfoiling eventually muscles out one of the existing classes. Keep track of the results here.

The road to LA28 rolls on in California, where the Long Beach Olympic Classes Regatta gets going today for the fifth Sailing Grand Slam event of the season. More than 100 kiteboarders and windsurfers – Formula Kite and iQFOiL – will race off Belmont Shore through to Thursday, on the very stretch of water that'll host Olympic sailing in 2028. With the Games now at the midpoint of the cycle – two years to the week before the sailing gets going – time on the course is worth its weight in gold. Racing starts at 2pm local each day, and it's free to watch from the beach and the Belmont pier if you happen to be nearby.

The WASZP Europeans are also under way, with racing kicking off today on the flat water of the Mar Menor in southern Spain and running until Friday. It's a whopper of a turnout – close to 400 sailors across the youth and masters divisions – and it comes hot on the heels of Foiling Week at Lake Garda, where the WASZP was comfortably the biggest fleet on the lake.

Finally, one for the whole family. The RS Games kick off in Travemünde on 16 July, folded into the enormous Travemünder Woche festival on the Baltic. This is RS Sailing's big get-together held every four years, and it's a monster: a dozen classes and 13 championships crammed into ten days, from the RS Tera and Feva Worlds for the youngsters right through to European titles in the RS200s, 400s, 800s and plenty more. The schedule is deliberately staggered so families can race in more than one fleet across the fortnight. And it’s as much a festival as a regatta: “Think magenta carpet, music, interactive games, and even the chance to try out demo boats for free!” says Michiel Geerling from RS Sailing.