OK Dinghy World Championship 2026 at Skovshoved, Denmark - Day 1
by Robert Deaves 8 Jun 22:12 PDT
5-12 June 2026
Wannes van Laer, BEL on day 1 of the OK Dinghy Worlds in Denmark © Robert Deaves /
www.robertdeaves.uk
The first day of the 2026 OK Dinghy World Championship at Skovshoved was a day of adages. Consistency is king. You can't win it on the first day, but you can lose it. It was a very tricky day. And it was all of those things and much more.
203 boats from 14 nations are taking part. The Øresund was full of OK Dinghies, battling against the elements and each other. Consistency was very hard to achieve with huge wind shifts and strong current.
Two races were completed for each of the two groups with race wins going to local sailor Jørgen Svendsen, Sweden's Mikael Björndal, Belgium's Wannes van Laer and Gordon Sims from New Zealand. The current again paid a huge role, but perhaps not as much as the wind shifts which were sizeable by any standard and also brought huge pressure changes across the course areas.
Jørgen Svendsen won his group in the first race of the day after a race long battle with Jørgen Holm, who led round the first mark.
"It was a very exciting day today. Yesterday when we had the tune-up, it was very good on the right. Everybody went for the right, but today it was brilliant on the left. So, I was lucky in the first one, started on the left, and even though there was a lot of current, it was a very good idea to be out in the windy conditions. But the ones to the right, they didn't manage. It was the same in the last race. No wind to the right, but a lot of wind to the left.
"It was quite a difficult day. I think there's a lot of ups and downs in the fleet, but it was fun. And it was warm, so no complaints."
Wannes van Laer is sailing in his first OK Dinghy event and won his group in the second race
"It was a bit of a tricky day. We had to wait a bit for the wind to be a bit more stable, then we had the first race. It was shifty and not super windy. The second upwind was really shifty. And then we waited between two races because the wind turned hard to the right, then it picked up a bit, then we had a second race, which was also a bit shifty, but I think the race committee did a very good job with the conditions we had to have two good races, so well done to them."
Van Laer is new to the class and was sailing the boat for only the third day, but was enjoying the experience.
"I really like it; it's a nice boat. It's quite different to an ILCA, but I start to have the feeling for it. Struggling a bit on the downwind still, but I guess I will get better and better into it during the event, so looking forward to it."
Two more races are scheduled for Tuesday with the 10 races series concluding on Friday.
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