Rising star Williams claims Australian match racing crown

Twelve months after Chelsea Williams crewed in the 2025 Australian Women's Match Racing Championship, the world no.23 skippered and won the 2026 edition, beating Mia Lovelady 3-0 in the final at Fremantle Sailing Club.

Six teams from Western Australia and New South Wales spent three days racing Elliott 7s off Fremantle, from 11 to 13 September, through conditions that shifted every day. Light northerlies and flat water on the Friday, a south-westerly on the Saturday, then a light, shifty breeze for Sunday's finals. Williams already had a strong match racing CV. She skippered the winning team at the 2025 John Messenger Women's Match Racing Regatta and was part of Cole Tapper's Australian crew that won the 2024 Youth Match Racing World Championship in Jeddah. Her form coming into Fremantle had been mixed, though. She had finished sixth of seven at this year’s John Messenger in Sydney just the weekend before.

Chelsea Williams' rocky road through the round robins

Freemantle wasn't an easy ride either. Williams lost five matches across the three round robins, twice to Isabella Holdsworth (Royal Prince Alfred YC) and twice to Sophie Jackson (Fremantle SC). By the end of round robin three, she and Lovelady were level on 10 wins and five losses each. Williams took top spot on the strength of beating Lovelady in two of their three meetings, and with it, the pick of her semi-final opponent. She chose Jackson.

That wasn't the easy pick. Jackson opened the regatta poorly, winning just 1 of her 5 matches in round robin one. She improved in round robin two, winning 3 of 5, which lifted her overall record to 4 wins and 6 losses. Then round robin three, she won 4 of her 5 matches, beating Williams, Ferguson, Holdsworth and Lovelady, and losing only to Norris, to finish the qualifying rounds with 8 wins and 7 losses overall. That was enough for fourth place, and the last spot in the semi-finals.

Williams beats Jackson and Lovelady for the title

Williams had lost both her round robin meetings with Jackson. In the semi-final, with a place in the decider at stake, that reversed: Williams won the first two matches, Jackson hit back in the third, and Williams closed it out 3-1 in the fourth. Lovelady beat Holdsworth 3-1 in the other semi. Williams then swept the final 3-0, sailing with Maddy McLeay, Paige Caldecoat, Clare Cini and Ali Braden, six wins from seven matches once the knockout rounds began. Holdsworth beat Jackson 2-1 in the petit final for third. Ferguson beat Norris 2-0 for fifth.

Williams called the John Messenger result the week before "a really disappointing result," and said the Fremantle win made up for it, her team's first national title together.