The P Class 2026 Tauranga Cup is now underway, getting its start on the heels of the completed Tanner Cup and Centenary Trophy.
A glance back through the record books shows the cup's long history. Ron Nalder claimed the inaugural title in 1940, and in the decades since, the event has produced a long roll of sailors who found themselves at the top of the P Class world. Graham Mander, Jimmy Gilpin, Rob Denniston, Wayne Innes, Mark Patterson, Mark Moyes, John Moyes, Terry Nicholas, Jon Bilger, Simon Cooke, Scott Kennedy, Sean Kensington, and Ollie Stone are among those who appear again and again on the winners' list, each having demonstrated a mastery of the class that outstripped their contemporaries.
The cup has also served as a launching pad to international waters. David Barnes, Chris Dickson, Leslie Egnot, Dean Barker, Paul Snow-Hansen, Leonard Takahashi, and Seb Menzies all passed through the Tauranga Cup on their way to the world stage. Egnot holds a particular place in the history books as the first woman to win the event, taking the title in 1979. Takahashi's year produced only a single race, though the record still required a winner. Menzies has since joined the Emirates Team New Zealand crew. The most recent addition to this list is Blake Batten, who took the 2025 title.
Batten arrived at the 2026 edition as the defending champion and wasted little time asserting himself. By the end of the opening day he sat at the head of the overall standings on six nett points, with Hamish Brown two points adrift and Lauchy Wills a further eight back, giving totals of six, eight, and sixteen nett points respectively. No discards had been applied at that stage.
The day's racing opened with a strong performance from Zofia Wells, who took race one ahead of Hamish Brown and Lauchy Wills. Brown had finished first overall in the 2026 Centenary Cup, while Wills had placed second overall in the 2026 Tanner Cup. Batten, the cup holder, crossed in fourth. Wells' victory stirred real interest among onlookers, raising the prospect that a woman might claim both the Tanner Cup and the Tauranga Cup in the same season, something that would mark another chapter in the event's evolving story.
Batten then won the second and third races to consolidate his position. Wells was declared DNF in race two, receiving a score of 39, while Will Fyfe and Hugh Kensington filled second and third. The Tauranga Cup runs across nine races with discards, which sets it apart from the Tanner Cup's six-race format. That structure means consistent top results remain important, though sailors do have slightly more opportunity to absorb a bad result and still mount a challenge.
The final race of the day saw Hamish Brown finish second and Lauchy Wills third. Philippa Wiltshire came fourth, and Zofia Wells recovered to take fifth. Wiltshire currently holds ninth place overall and leads the women's standings heading into day two.
The racing ahead shapes up as a compelling contest. Wells has shown she has the pace to challenge at the front, and Batten's back-to-back race wins demonstrate why he is the defending champion. Jo Aleh, who in 2002 became the first woman to win the Tanner Cup, offered her own perspective on the competition. She told Boating New Zealand she had been "super happy to see" news of Wells' Tanner Cup win, describing it as "so awesome to see Zofia leading this new generation of amazing young female sailors." With form, stamina, and composure all set to be tested over the remaining races, the 2026 Tauranga Cup has every ingredient for a memorable finish.
