Entries are officially open for Oceanbridge Sail Auckland 2027, with the Olympians who'll chase European selection in the months that follow set to share a start line at Torbay Sailing Club with the teenagers hoping to one day take their spots. New Zealand's biggest youth and Olympic classes regatta is locked in for Auckland's North Shore next February.
Registration is set for Wednesday 10 February, with four days of racing to follow from Thursday 11 through to Sunday 14 February 2027. Yachting New Zealand is running the show as organising authority, and entries close at 5pm on Thursday 28 January 2027.
More than 100 sailors from New Zealand and overseas are expected to line up across twelve classes. Single-handed sailors will contest the ILCA 6, ILCA 7, Waszp, kitefoil, wingfoil, iQFOiL 7.3m and iQFOiL 8m, while the double-handed ranks cover the 420, mixed 470, 29er, 49er and 49erFX.
It's the full Olympic pathway on one stretch of water. Youth sailors in 420s, 29ers and ILCA 6s will share a start line with the sailors they're hoping to one day replace. The Waszp joining the class list this time round gives the foiling dinghy set a genuine national-level stage.
Last summer's edition was the strongest international field Torbay has seen in years. More than 160 sailors from 14 countries turned up, including a good number of Paris 2024 Olympians, racing across four mostly light days.
Seb Menzies and George Lee Rush defended their 49er title comfortably, finishing more than 30 points clear of Switzerland's Sebastian Schneiter and Arno De Planta, with Mattias Coutts and Oscar Gunn third. The Kiwi duo have since been named finalists for Team of the Year at the 2026 World Sailing Awards. With Paris silver medallists Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie stepping back from the class, the battle for New Zealand's LA 2028 49er spot is shaping up as one to watch closely.
The ILCA 6 went right down to the wire, decided by a single point between Switzerland's Maud Jayet and American Olympian Erika Reineke. Greta Pilkington was the top Kiwi woman in fourth, her younger brother Tom finished third overall, and rising talent Chloe Turner was right in the mix. In the ILCA 7, George Gautrey crossed first in the final race to apparently win the regatta, only to lose the title to Britain's Micky Beckett after a trip to the protest room.
Germany's Jannis Maus won the kitefoil grand final in a fleet that included Paris Olympic gold medallist Ellie Aldridge. Aimee Bright topped the iQFOiL ahead of Veerle ten Have, then went on to claim the iQFOiL Under-23 World Championship in Poland in October.
Nicola and Rebecca Hume took out the 49erFX. Zofia Wells and Charlotte Handley, the 2025 RS Feva girls world champions, won seven of ten races in the 420. Blake Batten and Hugo Smith won the 29er despite having sailed together for only a few weeks.
For youth sailors, it's a rare shot at racing against Olympians and world champions without leaving the country. Four days chasing a Paris medallist round a windward mark teaches you more than a season of club racing ever could.
For the Olympic campaigners, the timing matters. It falls right before the European season begins, making it the last proper hit-out at home against serious international opposition, and with selection pressure building for LA 2028 across several classes, results here won't go unnoticed.
Everyone else just gets a great few days of racing to watch at Torbay. Yachting New Zealand chief executive Steve Armitage summed up last year's event by pointing out it isn't every day that so many Olympic sailors and world champions turn up to race "in our backyard".
The Ocean Race fleet is due into Auckland the following week, giving North Shore locals back-to-back weeks of world-class sailing on their doorstep.
