Double Dutch delight at the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 World Championships as British pair defend Nacra 17 World title

British pair John Gimson and Anna Burnet finished comfortably ahead of the fleet in the Nacra 17 class to retain the crown they won in Australia in 2020.

49er Round Up

Lambriex with van der Werken raced the medal race fearlessly in the final race, just as they had the whole regatta. They started behind the fleet and headed right, eventually poking out from the pack to lead at mark one. The situation was made easier with three teams being called over early, including the German leaders Tim Fischer and Fabian Graf, leading to a restart.

Fischer and Graf tried to close the gap enough to win back the title but had to settle for silver while bronze went to the Danish pair of Frederik Rask and Jakob Precht Jensen, who edged ahead of Ian Barrows and Hans Henken (USA) by one point.

“It’s been a few years away from the 49er but it’s great to be back,” said Floris van der Werken, who didn’t have confirmation of the win until most of the fleet had finished. “Bart did an amazing job of putting the boat in the right place.”

49erFX Round Up

Helene Naess and Marie Ronningen (NOR) kept their gold medal hopes alive by gaining six points on the Dutch in the last fleet race. In the medal race, the Norwegians sailed brilliantly, smoothly gybing into the top three downwind, but it wasn’t enough to overtake the Dutch. Double Olympic Gold medalists Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze (BRA) were also unable to mount a real challenge, despite passing half the fleet in the last downwind leg, finishing in third.

“We’re so happy with what we’ve done here,” said de Ruyter. “It’s great to be out here in Oman with my father, and Odile with her parents, to celebrate together. But I’m looking forward to going back home, even if the weather is cold, just to do normal things again.”

Both Dutch teams are new pairings in this class, formed in the summer when Van Aanholt’s and de Ruyter’s partners were injured, but they showed great teamwork to recover from some last day setbacks to claim the titles.

The Dutch sailing federation brought all of their high-performance 49er teams together and rotated the sailors, a strategy which proved successful with both pairs adjusting seamlessly to new teammates.

Nacra 17 Round Up

Although the Brits’ lead was almost unassailable, and finishing third in the medal race sealed the world title, there was drama unfolding behind them for silver and bronze.

Paul Kohlhoff and Alica Stuhlemmer (GER) started the day in second but slipped to third after Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei (ITA) overtook the Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco (ARG) for the race lead while Germany was struggling to make inroads into the fleet. The young Italians held on for the race win followed by Argentina. Kohlhoff and Stuhlemmer finished in seventh place, meaning silver went to Ugolini and Giubilei and bronze to the 2020 Olympic bronze medallists from Germany.

It has been a stellar couple of years for Gimson and Burnet. After winning the world title in 2020 they took Olympic silver at Tokyo 2020 and then barely took a break before going to Greece where they won the European Championship in September.

“I think that’s one of our big strengths is resetting in the race to stay focused,” said a visibly relieved Gimson. “Identifying what’s paid and getting back on to that. That’s what we spent our whole lives working on.”

We saw more breeze on the left before the start,” said Gimson, “so we wanted to win the pin end. Fortunately for us the Germans had to gybe around and this gave us the position we wanted.”