The Hague, The Netherlands is hosting the 2023 Allianz Sailing World Championships from 11th to 20th August 2023. More than 1200 sailors from 80 nations are racing across ten Olympic sailing disciplines. Paris 2024 Olympic Sailing Competition places will be awarded as well as 10 World Championship medals Credit: Sailing Energy / World Sailing. 18 August 2023. Photo: Sailing Energy / World Sailing
New Zealand sailors Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie have been denied a chance to race for gold by light winds on the final day of the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 European championship in Portugal, with the pair instead finishing with bronze.
Competitors spent several hours on the water off Vilamoura waiting for a breeze that never came with both the final gold-fleet race and the double-points medal race in the 49er competition abandoned shortly after 6am on Tuesday (NZ time).
It left the McKiwis - as locals have dubbed McHardie and McKenzie this week - just 3.4 points short of French winners Lucas Rual and Emile Amoros in first and 3 points behind Polish runners-up Dominik Buksak and Szymon Wierzbicki.
The New Zealanders won four of the 12 qualifying races and claimed top-10 finishes in five others to be among the front of the fleet throughout the regatta.
An uncharacteristic 20th place in the final fleet race ultimately proved costly, as McHardie and McKenzie surrendered the lead they had gained with their fourth win of the championship shortly before.
"It was a long day today. The forecast had no breeze all day, but that's sort of the forecast we've had all week," McKenzie said.
"Every day we've managed to sneak in a few races, so we woke up expecting to get out there for some more light-wind races, but unfortunately, the wind didn't play ball and the fleet race was cancelled. We went out on the water for the medal race, but the breeze rarely got above three knots.
"This was probably the lightest regatta we've ever had - the max breeze we saw was probably about seven knots, so a very tricky regatta."
The European championship was also the first of two selection trials for next year's Olympic Games, with the 49er and 49erFX world championships in Lanzarote in February the other.
McHardie and McKenzie are vying for the sole New Zealand spot on the 49er start line against teammates Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn, who finished 11th in Portugal.
Nacra 17 pair Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson were satisfied with certain aspects of their campaign in the Algarve despite finishing fifth - some way off the top three teams.
Jo Aleh and Molly Meech had earlier ended their 49erFX campaign in 34th place, well down on their season-best sixth place at the sailing world championships in August.