Allianz Sailing World Championships 2023: Ones to Watch - 49er

Winners of the last two class World Championships they are consistently at the front, and dominated the Paris 2024 Test Event in Marseille.

The Dutch are starting to look like the new Pete Burling and Blair Tuke, the unstoppable Kiwis who held sway over the 49er skiff fleet for so long, taking six world titles and two Olympic medals before fully moving into the professional world of America’s Cup and SailGP.

Behind the Dutch are any number of teams who can have a good regatta but have not been able to match the consistency of Lambriex and Van de Werken.

Diego Botin (ESP), who finished an agonising fourth at the Tokyo 2020 Games, is now teamed up with Nacra 17 Olympian Florian Trittel and they took silver at the 2022 Worlds although have struggled to maintain that form.

Botin recently took over the helm of Team Spain in SailGP, with Trittel already part of the crew. It makes for a busy season trying to stay on top of an Olympic campaign and be constantly travelling around the world to compete on high-tech foiling 50ft catamarans, but maybe the Spaniards will find a way of making their busy schedule work in their favour.

Another SailGP skipper is Sebastien Schneiter (SUI), of Team Switzerland, who with Arno de Planta took bronze at the Paris 2024 Test Event. This is a stand-out performance for a team yet to make a firm mark on the front of the fleet, and perhaps a sign of things to come for the young Swiss. Just ahead of them in silver were France’s Erwan Fischer and Clément Péquin (FRA) who also won the Princess Sofia Trophy in 2022 but have yet to demonstrate podium consistency.

Croatian brothers Sime and Mihovil Fantela (CRO) won the 2018 World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, and continue to threaten the front of the fleet, finishing fourth at the Paris 2024 Test Event. Sime was the 470 Olympic champion at Rio 2016 and is working hard to attain similar heights in the 49er.