Australians On The March
Report By Chris Thorne
The 505 fleet at Hayling Island was once again greeted with near perfect conditions as they set out for Races 3 and 4 of the 2026 World Championships, sponsored by WIP, Ovington Boats and Allen. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and a breeze of 10 knots was coming from the south southwest. This time the racing was switched to Bracklesham Bay, to the east of the entrance to Chichester Harbour, in the hope of avoiding the unusual wind changes experienced the previous day.
The pathfinder for the start of Race 3 was RSA 8725, sailed by Alexander and Warwick Ham from Pretoria Sailing Club. The Australian team of Peter Nicholas and Luke Payne started early and quickly got their noses in front, tacking back across the fleet and leading the British pair of Roger Gilbert and Ian Mitchell around the first windward mark by about 50 metres. By the end of the first downwind leg, Nicolas and Payne had stretched their lead. The wind direction had stayed reasonably constant but had gradually increased in speed and by the start of the second beat was between 14 and 16 knots. The Australian boat held onto its lead at the top mark in spite of a late lift favouring a group of boats that had gone further right. However, on the final run the German duo of Jan-Philipp Hofmann and Felix Brockerhoff and the USA’s Mike Holt and Carl Smit both gybed earlier to take first advantage of the stronger breeze coming from the right and powered over Nicholas and Payne, pushing them down into third place.
As forecast, the average wind direction had now veered to the southwest, but had remained at between 14 and 16 knots. The fleet was led away by the USA crew of Doug Hagan and Nalu Ho. Once again, an early start giving ability to play the regular wind shifts seemed to pay off. Towards the end of the beat the Australian boat of Mike Quirk and Tim Needham, had successfully plotted their way to the front just ahead of the UK teams of Michael Sims and Carl Gibbon and Roger Gilbert with Ian Mitchell. Quirk and Needam held on to their lead down the run with Sims and Gibbon staying close behind, but another Aussie pair, Malcolm Higgins and Nick Johnston, had pushed through into third place. After leading threequarters of Race 2 before having victory snatched from them by a precocious wind the day before, Quirk and Needham must have suffered a degree of deja-vu. However, despite strong pressure from the chasing pack which included Howie Hamlin and Andy Zinn, who had clearly put their disappointing result in Race 2 behind them, they held on down the final leg to secure victory.
Top Six
