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Finishing fourth at a major event is never easy, especially when a medal was within grasp, but Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie also know they're not far off being among the world's best 49er crews now.
The pair went into this morning's top-10 medal race at the 49er, 49erFX and Nacra 17 world championships in Nova Scotia in third, having climbed one position after the final gold fleet race.
But they struggled in a topsy-turvy medal race that saw boats go from last to first in one leg as the offshore breeze softened to between 5-7 knots, finishing 10th in that race to drop to fourth overall.
"We are pretty happy with the result but also gutted with how it finished up," McKenzie said. "It could have been a podium, but that’s sailing. Nothing seemed to go our way [in the medal race]. We tried to pick shifts but they just didn’t work.
"We just need to be more consistent across the range of conditions. We have areas of weakness and, if we can nail those, we are looking to be consistently up the top end of the fleet."
McHardie and McKenzie put together a series of top-10 results at international events this year, highlighted by a third at Kiel Week, and were the best placed of the Kiwis across the three fleets at these world championships.
Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn finished seventh in the 49er, illustrating the ongoing strength of New Zealand 49er sailing, Alex Maloney and Olivia Hobbs were eighth in the 49erFX and Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson were ninth in the Nacra 17. Jo Aleh and Molly Meech just missed out on the 49erFX medal race, finishing 11th overall to round out a series of encouraging results for the entire NZL Sailing Team.
The result also continued an impressive run at pinnacle events for Dunning Beck and Gunn, with the pair finishing in the top seven in their last four world championships.
There were a couple of bright spots on the final day in Canada, with Maloney and Hobbs finishing second in the 49erFX medal race and Wilkinson and Dawson romping away to win the Nacra 17 medal race. Wilkinson and Dawson had gone into the event as one of the main contenders and started well but slipped down the leaderboard in the last couple of days.
The entire fleet has a lot of work to do to try to catch up to Italy's Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti, who won 14 of the 17 races to finish a mammoth 60 points ahead of their compatriots Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei in second.
"We are stoked to get a medal race win at the worlds today and saved a bit of pride by winning that race quite convincingly," Wilkinson said.
"It’s been a pretty challenging end to the worlds. We have really struggled over the last few days. We’ve had some poor starts and haven’t really got the boat going and put on some massive points at the end of the regatta.
"It’s a huge shame because we’ve had a really cool year, with good results all year and we came into the event feeling pretty good. It’s been a huge year, we have been away from home for six months, so we’re looking forward to a break and will put some plans together for next year."
All of the crews will return home to New Zealand for the summer and will aim to train and race in Europe as much as possible next year as the 2024 Paris Olympics start to come more into view.
Results and standings after day 6 of the 49er, 49erFx and Nacra 17 World Championships in Nova Scotia:
49er (65 boats)
1st: Bart Lambriex / Floris van de Werken (NED) 12 2 1 1 2 11 10 3 2 2 7 1 5 8 (15) 18 - 85 points
2nd: Diego Botin / Florian Trittel (ESP) 6 1 7 3 (25) 8 7 2 3 18 4 6 9 15 1 16 - 107 pts
3rd: Sime Fantela / Mihovil Fantela (CRO) 3 2 1 5 17 7 (25) 12 1 1 5 21 3 1 20 10 - 109 pts
4th: Isaac McHardie / William McKenzie (NZL) (22) 5 4 22 9 8 3 1 11 6 3 11 7 2 4 20 - 116 pts
7th: Logan Dunning Beck / Oscar Gunn (NZL) 9 7 9 6 6 1 16 1 6 12 8 14 (22) 10 9 12 - 126 pts
45th: Sam Bacon / Henry Gautrey (NZL) 13 20 30 26 24 24 (UFD) 27 11 DSQ 8 9 8 193 6 - 262 pts
49erFX (36 boats)
1st: Odile van Aanholt / Annette Duetz (NED) 2 1 1 3 2 5 9 (29) 24 4 2 3 2 1 3 16 6 - 84 pts
2nd: Vilma Bobeck / Rebecca Netzler (SWE) 5 3 2 7 1 3 5 (31) 18 1 14 2 3 8 2 10 20 - 103 pts
3rd: Tamara Echegoyen / Paula Barcelo (ESP) 4 2 3 (24) 4 4 13 16 9 19 5 5 7 1 6 16 - 127 pts
8th: Alex Maloney / Olivia Hobbs (NZL) 10 (26) 13 4 7 9 6 8 7 9 18 17 9 16 14 25 4 - 175 pts
11th: Jo Aleh / Molly Meech (NZL) 9 20 8 8 3 10 26 (32) 4 5 19 10 22 4 16 20 - 183 pts
Nacra 17 (34 boats)
1st: Ruggero Tita / Caterina Banti (ITA) 1 1 1 1 1 1 (20) 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 10 - 26 pts
2nd: Gianluigi Ugolini / Maria Giubilei (ITA) 3 3 9 4 2 2 11 5 18 2 5 3 3 9 4 (29) 4 - 86 pts
3rd: Sinem Kurtbay . Akseli Keskinen (FIN) 5 2 3 (14) 7 6 4 10 9 7 2 6 9 3 6 8 14 - 101 pts
9th: Micah Wilkinson / Erica Dawson (NZL) 7 8 2 9 8 11 2 3 17 5 16 8 18 12 22 (24) 2 - 150 pts
Pic: Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson convincingly won the Nacra 17 medal race at the world championships in Canada today. Photo: Sailing Energy.
