Robert Scheidt, from Brazil, has taken his fifth world championship title in the Laser World Sailing Championship in Cork, Ireland. Scheidt dominated the racing with seven wins from 11 races over a fleet of 164 entries from 48 countries.

Meanwhile Great Britain’s Ben Ainslie – who took Gold from Scheidt in the famous last race battle in the Olympic Laser Class at Sydney 2000 – was making an appearance at the helm of Skandia Life Leopard in Cowes.

Despite Ainslie’s absence at the Laser worlds, Great Britain were well represented amongst the leaders. Paul Goodison (GBR) – training partner for Ben Ainslie in Sydney 2000, and medal hopeful for Athens 2004 – finished fourth overall in a fleet of 164, and in which he was in the top five for seven races.

There are four more Brits in the world championship top 50, including Ed Wright and ISAF Youth World Champion, Mark Powell (GBR) who had an encouraging result for such a young sailor, at 50th.

Forty degree wind shifts on day six, however, scattered the pack with three of the top four sailors scoring their worst result of the championship thus far. Robert Scheidt concurred: “I was very surprised when I got to the top mark last!” When asked how it felt to be last at that point Scheidt was remarkably philosophical, “I just decided to see how far I could catch up.” His calmness and focus enabled him to work back to 29th – more than respectable in this high quality fleet.

Each day of the championship at Royal Cork Yacht Club (the oldest yacht club in the world) brought a new surprise from mother nature – mostly the unusual weather conditions. But on day four, just as the fleet started, two killer whales were spotted at the weather mark. The whales had been in the waters off Cork for the past few weeks, but fortunately were unconcerned about 164 Lasers sailing in their patch of water.

Overall Results (after one discard)

1st BRA Robert Scheidt

2nd POR Gustavo Lima

3rd NOR Peer Moberg

4th GBR Paul Goodison

5th RSA Gareth Blanckenberg

6th SWE Rasmus Myrgren

7th SWE Karl Suneson

8th SWE Daniel Birgmark

9th BEL Phillipe Bergmans

10th ESP Luis Martinez

12th GBR Ed Wright

15th GBR Jim Taylor

26th GBR Mark Howard

47th GBR Peter Walker

50th GBR Mark Powell

59th GBR Tim Holse

63rd GBR James Date

66th GBR Andrew Walsh

76th GBR James Green