Ugolini and Giubilei win Nacra 17 world title in Quiberon

Quiberon did more than hand out a world title. It exposed a Nacra 17 fleet where one restart, one clean foiling lane and one calm final day can redraw the order at the front.

The 2026 Nacra 17 World Championship ran alongside the 49er and 49erFX worlds from May 12 to May 17 in Saint-Pierre-Quiberon and Quiberon, on the Brittany coast of France, with 37 teams on the entry list. By the end of Sunday’s medal racing, the class had its first-time champions: Italy’s Gianluigi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei.

Their win came from control as much as speed. Ugolini and Giubilei opened the final day with an eight-point lead, then had to restart after believing they had crossed too soon. Even with that wrinkle, they found full foiling mode when others were struggling, and that was enough to protect the lead and seal their first world title. In a class as quick to punish hesitation as the Nacra 17, that kind of recovery matters as much as outright boat speed.

France’s Tim Mourniac and Aloise Retornaz pushed them hard and finished second, after carrying the yellow jersey for four straight days before the finale. John Gimson and Anna Burnet took third for Britain, keeping themselves in the same elite bracket that has defined recent Nacra racing. The top six also included Australia’s Archie Gargett and Sarah Hoffman, plus Sweden’s Emil Järudd and Hanna Jonsson, a reminder that the depth behind the podium is still widening.

That depth is part of what makes this title race feel like a shift rather than a single result. World Sailing selected the Nacra 17 in May 2012 for the mixed multihull event at Rio 2016, making it the first mixed discipline on the Olympic sailing program. After Rio, the boat evolved into a fully foiling catamaran, and the level of technical demand only climbed. The Olympic class now rewards crews that can coordinate under pressure, manage transitions cleanly and keep the platform flying when the breeze, the line and the scoreboard all start moving at once.

Quiberon ended with Italy on top, but the more revealing story was how the win was earned. In the Nacra 17, the new competitive order is being set by crews that can combine speed, timing and nerve when the race stops being simple.