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Steve McDowell grabbed a top-10 place to finish as the leading Kiwi at the 2023 OK Dinghy world championship in Lyme Regis, UK - an event dominated by the host nation's sailors.
McDowell finished eighth overall with two second places across nine races to lead the New Zealand charge.
Greg Wilcox (28th), Mark Perrow (32nd), Gordon Sims (39th), Marc Grise (55th) and Simon Probert (65th) were the other Kiwis competing in the 72-boat fleet.
Britain's Henry Wetherell claimed victory by five points from Sweden's Niklas Edler, with Valerian Lebrun, from France, taking the bronze.
Saturday's final day brought colder and stronger winds with a lot of cloud and some rain ensuring a tough end to what was a tough week.
Wetherell dominated the final day and won both the gold fleet races in the biggest winds and waves of the week to take the lead for the first time. He fought off a strong challenge from McDowell in the first race, with Britain’s Andrew Mills in third. Then in the final race, he led from start to finish, holding off Mills, while McDowell sealed his top 10 placing with an excellent third.
Two fourth places from Edler repeated his runner-up place from 2022, while two fifth places from Lebrun moved him up to third place.
Steve McDowell finished eighth overall after a strong showing in the gold fleet. Photos / Robert Deaves
The leaderboard changed somewhat on the final day with previous leader Nick Craig picking up a black flag in the first race and Denmark’s Bo Petersen retiring with gear damage.
The talk all week has been about the high level of the competition with many past world champions struggling to even make the top 15. The top 10 represents perhaps the past and future of the class with four former world champions in the top 10, with Craig the highest in sixth.
In the silver fleet, David Ketteridge from Australia won the group from Germany’s Rainer Pospiech and Belgium’s Steven Jamar. The race wins today went to Britain’s Thomas Southwell and Denmark’s Søren Sigurdsson.
Wetherell said, “From early this week to today there was quite a big difference in my downwind speed so I managed to get away from the fleet today. That was quite nice and [I] had to manage the fleet from there and keep hiking but it was hard. I had Andrew Mills behind me charging upwind so it was a hard day but I got through it with two wins, so all good.”
It was his first-ever world championship win.
Britain's Henry Wetherell is the 2023 world champion. Photos / Robert Deaves
“It feels pretty good. After five days of hard racing a relatively new boat for me, it was a tough week at the start and slowly got better and better. It was just really good and enjoyable.”
The next world championship will be held in Brisbane, Australia in February 2024. - with OK Dinghy International Association
Final results and standings from the 2023 OK Dinghy world championship hosted by Lyme Regis Sailing Club:
1st: Henry Wetherell (GBR) 8 (9) 3 3 2 4 2 1 1 - 24 points
2nd: Niklas Edler (Swe) 1 (16) 3 2 4 2 9 4 4 - 29 pts
3rd: Jens Eckardt (Den)4 2 4 1 10 5 (13) 5 5 - 36 pts
8th: Steve McDowell (NZ) 6 26 7 2 8 9 (31) 2 3 - 63 pts
28th: Greg Wilcox (NZ) 18 8 15 7 32 15 28 26 (73 DNC) - 149 pts
32nd: Mark Perrow (NZ) 40 17 9 19 45 11 (66) 11 21 - 173 pts
39th: Gordon Simms (NZ) 27 19 24 18 33 14 (42) 36 35 - 206 pts
55th: Marc Grise (NZ) 26 41 38 20 27 19 49 (51TAL3) 45 TAL3 - 265 pts
65th: Simon Probert (NZ) 17 43 18 21 12 (73RET) 57 73DNC 73DNC - 314 pts
Full results here.
