Sailors Down Under Ready for Future

From Sailing World Cup Final – Melbourne – Day 2

Rio 2016 Olympic silver medallists Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin (AUS) continue to control the Nacra 17 fleet and made it five wins in a row, but New Zealand’s young guns Olivia Mackay and Micah Wilkinson halted the Aussies dominant run by winning the sixth race of the series.

The Kiwis recently won the Red Bull Foiling Generation, a Flying Phantom event open to sailors aged 16-20 in Newport, Rhode Island, USA. The win and experience of taming a “beastie foiling version of the Nacra,” put aptly by Mackay, puts them in a strong position as the Nacra 17 will go fully foiling for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

The first foiling Nacra 17 event is expected to be the 2017 European Championships next July and Mackay cannot wait for the new challenge, “I’m so excited for the class to go foiling,” she expressed. “Forty boats foiling into the bottom gate is going to be interesting and entertaining to watch. I think it’s an exciting change and we’ve got to be positive and embrace it.”

For now, Mackay and Wilkinson are focusing on the task at hand and have six fleet races remaining to haul in the leading Australians ahead of Saturday’s Medal Race.

By Dan Smith – World Sailing