Jan-Philipp Hofmann and Felix Brockerhoff of Germany are the 2026 505 World Champions.
Hofmann and Brockerhoff won the World title with with a day and two races still to go, something that the IOC frowns apon as not providing enough Jeopardy on the final day, so just as well that they have no involvement in real-world sailing.
This was the German pairs first 505 World title, having been runners up in the last two European Championships and the 2024 World Championship. And achieved in some style . . . a 4 2 1 4 1 2 2 1 scoreline allowing them the discard the two final day races. The event also used their traditional ‘gate-starts’ allowing 90 boats to start on the one line.
With Hofmann and Brockerhoff absent, the battle was between USA and GBR crews for the other podium places.
Britain’s Paul Brotherton and James Fawcett won the first race of the final day, with Howard Hamlin and Andy Zinn of the USA finishing fourth and maintaining their second place overall by just 2 pts. Peter Nicholas and Luke Payne of Australia had a 13th to remain in 4th place.
So, then all down to the final race (race 10) with initially Brotherton and Fawcett finishing ahead of Hamlin and Zinn and seeming to have taken the second podium place.
But a protest by Hamlin and Zinn (USA 9262) regarding a Port Starboard incident with Brotherton and Fawcett (GBR 9274) in the pre-start of R10, found that . . . ‘GBR 9274 on port failed to keep clear of USA 9262 on starboard and broke RRS10, and GBR 9274 was DSQ in R10’.
This placed Hamlin and Zinn back into second overall with a five point advantage over Brotherton and Fawcett in third overall.
Nicholas and Payne were fourth, and AJ Conrads and Jon Bell of the USA, moved up into fifth after winning the final race.
Lots of images available on the HISC Gallery here . . .
505 World Championship 2026
Leaders after 10 races, 2 discards (90 entries)
Full results available here . . .