Pauline Courtois has won the 2026 World Sailing Women’s Match Racing World Championship, taking her sixth consecutive title with Match in Pink by Normandy Elite Team on San Francisco Bay.
The French skipper raced alongside Maëlenn Lemaitre, Louise Acker and Laurane Mettraux at the championship, held at St. Francis Yacht Club from 30 September to 4 October. The event report said Courtois’s crew won 19 of the 20 matches they sailed across four days, a record which underlined their control of an event contested by 12 invited all-women teams.
Courtois’s team represented Club de Voile Saint-Aubin Elbeuf and defended the five world titles it had already won. Its latest success makes the run six championships in succession, while the 19-match return left little room for rivals to overturn the French crew’s progress through the regatta’s stages.
A demanding route to the final
The championship was raced in J/22s and began with a round-robin phase on Thursday and Friday. Eight teams then progressed to the quarter-finals, while a separate Saturday stage decided positions from fifth to eighth. The leading four moved on to match-point semi-finals.
Conditions changed markedly during the week. The event report said the opening day brought winds of 20 knots, but three of the four mornings began with little wind. Racing officials sought to use the available breeze once it arrived, with the Bay’s tides and currents also shaping the tactical challenge.
St. Francis Yacht Club race director Felix Weidling assessed the round-robin as a long but clear qualifying process for a 12-team fleet. He said the standard across the entry meant there were no straightforward races or obvious gaps between the teams, with crews arriving prepared to compete at the highest level.
That context makes Courtois’s match record particularly significant. The event evidence supports the view that Courtois’s crew combined consistency with the ability to manage both stronger winds and lighter, more tactical races.
Breault reaches home-water decider
Courtois’s final opponent was Nicole Breault and Vela Racing, the team representing host club St. Francis Yacht Club. Breault, sailing with Molly Carapiet, Hailey Thompson and Molly Vandemoer, beat Julia Aartsen’s Dutch Out of the Box team in their match-point semi-final to earn a place in the Grand Final.
Courtois and Match in Pink by Normandy Elite Team reached the decider by overcoming another French crew, Lucie Gout’s L4C Racing Team. Gout sailed with Flavie Foucher, Clarisse Baissac and Lomane Valade for APCC Voile Sportive.
The Grand Final ended 3-0 to Courtois against Breault.
The final therefore placed the defending champions against a local team familiar with the race area. Breault said the lighter winds did not remove the difficulty of San Francisco Bay, where tides, currents and changing water patterns remained important variables even for sailors accustomed to those waters.
Aartsen’s Out of the Box, representing the Royal Netherlands Yacht Club, took bronze after defeating Gout’s L4C Racing Team in two Petit Final matches. Aartsen said the result was the best of her career and credited her crew for helping her remain focused through the event.
What the result establishes
Courtois’s sixth straight title is the central competitive outcome from a championship that used a demanding elimination structure after the round robin. Winning 19 of 20 matches carried the French team through to another world crown.
The result also reflects the importance of versatility at this venue. Course race officer Becky Ashburn said the competitors had experienced both the stronger conditions expected on the Bay and lighter races in which tactical decisions and current awareness became decisive. Courtois and her crew ultimately handled that range better than the field over the full programme.