Thirty knots one weekend, glassy and shifty the next. That was the range on offer at Murrays Bay Sailing Club, where more than 100 of the country's best young sailors spent four days fighting for national titles and, more importantly, a place on the plane to Portugal.
The 2026 PredictWind New Zealand Youth Championships wrapped up with 16 sailors claiming titles across six classes. Beyond the silverware, the regatta doubled as trials for the World Sailing Youth Worlds, returning to Vilamoura from 15-19 December.
The opening weekend was brutal. Heavy winds tested crews before the fleet settled into two days of what organisers called champagne sailing, only for the final day to turn dramatic again and decide several of the titles on the line.
Winners in four of the six classes, both male and female, will now be considered for the NZL Sailing Foundation youth team. Yachting New Zealand selectors are expected to confirm the squad in the coming days.
Youth manager Sam Mackay was full of praise for how the fleet handled the swings in conditions.
"The sailors showed incredible determination and skill in very challenging conditions," Mackay said. "Especially impressive were several sailors who handled the conditions well in what was their first Youth Trials. The quality of racing was high across the fleets, with very little to pick between sailors in some of the competitions."
The boys' 29er battle was tight all week. Nelsen Meacham and Oli Stone won three of their 11 races and added six second placings to take the title, finishing five points ahead of Matteo Barker and Leo Brown. Last year's Youth Worlds pair, Will Leech and Will Mason, rounded out the podium in third. Three crews from this fleet had finished inside the top 10 at the class world championships earlier in the year, a sign of the depth in the division.
Bella Jenkins and Jess Handley made the girls' 29er look straightforward, securing the title comfortably. They're now in the box seat for a second consecutive Youth Worlds campaign, having already claimed the Female under-19 World Championship title in Kiel, Germany, in July, where New Zealand was named the world's top 29er nation.
Stone already has a Youth Worlds medal to his name. He took bronze in the boys' 420 with Cam Brown in 2025 before switching to the 29er this season with Meacham.
That 2025 campaign was the best for the NZL Sailing Foundation youth team in seven years, with three medals. Toby Wigglesworth took silver in the boys' kitefoil, and Tessa Clinton and Amelia Higson claimed bronze in the girls' 420.
Clinton featured again in one of the week's more remarkable storylines. She joined Lucy Luxford as a last-minute replacement less than a week before racing began, and the pair still led the girls' 420 fleet for most of the regatta. They capsized in the final race and still held on for the title, finishing ahead of Amber Hughes and Phoebe Willis.
Hamish Brown and Zenon Nicholas were dominant in the boys' 420, winning four races and never finishing worse than fourth to claim their first Youth Trials title as a pairing.
The boys' ILCA 6 came down to the wire. Tom Pilkington, 15th at last year's Youth Worlds, took second in the deciding race to edge Arran Begic by a single point after Begic finished third in that same race.
Chloe Turner won the girls' ILCA 6, capping off a strong international year that included bronze at the ILCA 6 Youth World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark, and bronze at the Youth European Championships in Greece just three weeks earlier.
In the boards, Vlad Misescu held off Ben Rist and Josh Tuck to win the boys' iQFOiL, while Elbe White got the better of Margarita Konstantinova in the girls' fleet.
The Waszp made its debut this year as an invited class alongside the wingfoil. Neither features on the Youth Worlds programme, but both proved popular. Oliver Tiedemann and Dahlia Fyfe won the boys' and girls' Waszp titles, and Riley Peet and Valentina Gladiadis topped the wingfoil fleets.
Mackay reckons the tough Murrays Bay conditions will pay dividends in Portugal.
"We know from last year's Youth Worlds that we are likely to experience the full range of conditions in Vilamoura, and this week will stand the team in good stead," he said.
A good number of the sailors in contention already know what Youth Worlds pressure feels like, Stone, Jenkins, Handley, Clinton, Pilkington and Turner among them. Turner and Clinton are both chasing a fourth campaign at the event.
New Zealand's history at the Youth Worlds runs deep. Past medallists include Josh Armit, Seb Menzies, Alex Maloney, Jo Aleh, Sir Russell Coutts and Blair Tuke, and the country has won the Nations Trophy twice, in 1994 and 2002.
Mackay said the selected sailors will now work through the priorities identified during the week with their class coaches.
"For some of the sailors, there will also be an opportunity to head to Australia for an event in the build-up to the Youth Worlds," he said. "Many of these sailors have already achieved top results at recent international events and will be using the next few months to prepare for what will be another excellent chance to achieve further success on the world stage."
