Fong recovers from slow start to retain NZ Keelboat Nationals title at Akarana

Ethan Fong arrived at the 2026 Akarana Eatery NZ Keelboat National Championships already carrying the tag of New Zealand's most in-form youth match racer. He left Royal Akarana Yacht Club on Sunday with that reputation reinforced and another national title secured. Racing Farr MRX keelboats in fleet racing format on the Waitematā, the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron sailor hauled himself back from a difficult opening day to win four of the final five races, finishing on a nett score of 20. Open division winner Luke Cashmore was six points behind him, and fellow youth competitor Josh Hyde a further point adrift in third, seven off the lead.

The title extends a strong run for Fong. He claimed the Hardy Cup in Sydney earlier this year, then took the NZ Youth Match Racing Trials on the Waitematā in a five-race final. Fleet racing on keelboats sits well apart from the one-on-one discipline he has made his own, yet the outcome at Royal Akarana looked much the same as it has all season.

Sally Garrett finished fourth overall and claimed the Women's division title. Cashmore, representing the Shorthanded Sailing Association, took the Open division honours. Hyde finished third overall and second in the Youth division.

Day 1: Garrett leads, Fong finds his feet

Garrett and her crew of Jenny Price, Emma Stenhouse, Julia Hamilton, Cynthia Waru, and Sarah Reynolds won Race 1 and established themselves at the head of the fleet. After that opening race, the top three positions were held entirely by female skippers: Garrett first, Kylie Jameson second, and Ella Arnold third.

The order shifted as the day progressed. Josh Hyde, sailing with Nick Drummond, Braydon Hamilton, Ben Crawford, Crue Ellis, Cody Coughlan, and Luca Smith, won Race 2 to put himself in the mix. Guy Pilkington, crewed by Dwayne McGorman, Garth McKilliam, Ewen Thorpe, Paul Groom, and George Pilkington, took Race 3. Luke Cashmore, with Peter Soosalu, Alex Edwards, Mateusz Jamkowski, Monty Alderson, Marcus Van Dam, and Josh Holder, won Race 4. Fong, sailing with Lucas Day, Harry McMullen, Hugo McMullen, Amelia Angus, Tim Howse, and Sam Clark, got his first win of the regatta in Race 5, but an 8-point result in Race 3 had already done its damage, leaving him back in fourth. Garrett closed out the day with another top-two finish to sit clear of the fleet on 14 points.

End of Day 1 standings

Day 2: Fong takes over

Fong won Race 6, then won Race 7. Those back-to-back victories hauled him level with Garrett on 25 points and gave the regatta a new shape. Pilkington won Race 8 to record his second race victory of the weekend, with Fong leading the overall standings for the first time, Garrett in second, and Cashmore moving up to third. Hyde then won Race 9, his second race win of the series, compressing the leaderboard before the final race. Fong led on 32, Garrett and Cashmore were tied on 35, and Hyde sat one point further back on 36. Four boats separated by seven points with one race to sail.

Fong won Race 10 to seal it. His scorecard across the final five races read 1, 1, 4, 3, 1, the record of a sailor who had found his rhythm and refused to let it go. Three wins from the last three races, four from the last five, and a title that had looked unlikely at the close of Day 1.

End of Day 2 standings (raw totals)

Cashmore, Pilkington and Fraser

The Open division title was a well-earned result for Cashmore. His Race 4 win was the headline moment, but the real foundation of his campaign was consistency through the middle of the regatta, nothing worse than fifth, which gave him enough in reserve to absorb a ninth in the final race without slipping off the podium. With two discards applied, his nett score of 26 was the most consistent accumulation of points in the fleet.

Guy Pilkington of RNZYS was the only other sailor to win two races outright, taking Race 3 and Race 8, but a wider spread of results elsewhere left him fifth overall on 32 points. Andrew Fraser, also of the Shorthanded Sailing Association and sailing with Alex Webster, Brendan Sneddan, Helen Evans, Bruno Page, Oleg Smirnov, and James West, finished ninth overall on 49 points, with his best result a second place in Race 2.

Hyde, Scott, and Fong

Third place overall was a creditable result for Hyde, though entering the final race with a genuine chance of winning the regatta and not converting will sting. He won twice, stayed in contention throughout, and pushed Fong right to the end. Fong and Hyde had already met at the Hardy Cup in February and the NZ Youth Match Racing Trials in March, with Fong winning both.

Sam Scott, who had finished second overall at last year's Nationals, ended the regatta in seventh place. Sailing with Finn Balchin, Tim McCulloch, Ben Roff, Noah Malpot, James Blyth, Mason Mulcahy, and Rose Dickey, he could not replicate his 2025 form despite a race win mid-series. Ella Arnold finished eighth overall as the fourth and final Youth division entry.

Garrett and Jameson

Garrett led outright after Day 1 and remained a genuine title contender deep into Sunday's racing, posting nothing worse than 7 across all ten races. The prospect of a women's crew winning the outright title had been a talking point before the event. "I hope this can be the year," she had said. "There is no reason why not with one design boats and a weight limit, the women's teams certainly have talent." The final result kept that ambition just out of reach, and right up until the last race the gap was very small.

Kylie Jameson, whose crew included Sara Tucker, Paula Satterthwaite, Raynor Hagg, Jen Jamison, Joanna Wilce, and Jenny Egnot, finished sixth overall and second in the Women's division on a nett score of 39.

Final results

Division winners

Overall and Youth: Ethan Fong (Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron)

Open: Luke Cashmore (Shorthanded Sailing Association)

Women's: Sally Garrett (Royal Akarana Yacht Club)

Results provisional as of 14:18 on 3 May 2026. Sailed: 10, Discards: 2, To count: 8, Entries: 9, Scoring system: Appendix A.