I can only imagine the tension in the boat park at Malcesine on the banks of Italy’s Lake Garda this evening, on the eve of racing at the 2025 Moth World Championship.
There are world championships – and then there is this world championship.
The 145-strong entry features sailors from 23 countries across the globe and is studded with a multitude of the big names of our sport right now – including strong representation from the America’s Cup and SailGP.
Great Britain’s contingent is the largest at 28 entries, with British hopes riding on the Olympic gold medallist trio of Dylan Fletcher, Giles Scott, and Paul Goodison. The latter is a past three-time Moth world champion (consecutively in 2016, 2017, and 2018), who has lived in Garda long enough to have attained local-knowledge status.
By his own admission (see below), at six feet six inches (1.98 metres) Scott is too big to be a Moth sailor, but with Europe in the grips of a heatwave that could well trigger some classic 20-knot-plus Ora thermal winds this coming week, he may just find himself more competitive than he thinks.
Fletcher also has won the title before – in Argentina in 2022 – but, as he pointed out to me in our interview for a two-part SailGP story a couple of months ago, he is ‘not a big chap’ and had set his expectations for this world championship accordingly.
Matthias Coutts is the defending champion and he and Jacob Pye – runner-up last year in Australia – are the top two firm favourites to take the 2025 title. The duo trained extensively together before the 2024 worlds, testing rigs and foils as well as technique, and by all accounts have been doing the same in the run-up to this year’s championship. Those in the know believe both Kiwi sailors will be sporting something special in Garda this week.
That said, the dark horse for the regatta could well be France’s Enzo Ballanger. If that name sounds familiar, you probably remember him as skipper of the French Orient Express Racing team in the Youth America’s Cup in Barcelona last year. The Frenchman has been turning heads in recent weeks during training on Lake Garda and turned in an impressive scoreline to edge out Pye in the recent Foiling Week regatta. Could Ballanger outshine the French America’s Cup team’s senior helmsman Kevin Pepponet at this worlds and earn himself a place on the French AC75 in AC38?
There are four SailGP skippers entered, including Australian skipper and 2019 Moth world champion Tom Slingsby, Swiss driver Sebastien Schneiter, Spain’s Diego Botin, and ex-Canada driver Phil Robertson (sailing for Sweden where he lives). Also keep an eye out for Australian Iain Jensen – wing trimmer for the Emirates GBR SailGP Team.
Meanwhile, heading up a 16-strong American squad is American Magic’s newly crowned TP52 World Champion helmsman Harry Melges, along with fellow AM sailors Lucas Calabrese, Severin Graham, and Riley Gibbs. Also keep an eye out for American sailor and Boeing engineer Richard Didham.
Racing is scheduled from tomorrow through until Sunday with Tuesday and Wednesday for the qualifying series, Thursday set aside as a reserve day, before the three day final series to decide the overall rankings.
It’s shaping up to be a belter of a championship. The conditions look classic Garda, the talent pool is deep, and the stakes feel higher than ever. Reputations could well be made and lost over the coming days. Coutts and Pye might well be feeling the most pressure – the former as he tries to defend his title, the latter hoping to one-up his training partner and clinch the 2025 title.
The pressure is already on and will ratchet up even more around 1300 tomorrow when the Ora thermal begins to blow and racing gets underway. It’s all about staying cool under pressure – but who will do that best over the coming week is yet to be determined.
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