The 2026 World Championship for the RC44s will take place next week on the Solent, out of Cowes, hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron and Team Aqua owner Chris Bake. As usual in this highly competitive owner-driver fleet, second-guessing the outcome between the nine teams is difficult. Currently leading the 2026 44Cup championship is Markus Törnqvist’s GeMera Racing. At April’s 44Cup Puntaldia in Sardinia, the Swedish team relieved John Bassadone’s Peninsula Racing of the RC44’s ‘golden wheels’, equivalent to the yellow jersey in the Tour de France. They followed this with a second place on their home waters of Marstrand in June and now lead Pietro Loro Piana’s team on Aleph Racing by two points, just ahead of Nico Poons’ Team Charisma.
“It’s important,” comments Törnqvist, who will face his father and stablemate Torbjörn steering Artemis Racing. “You can’t discard the points, so you need to go in with confidence and make sure you do well. It can get very difficult straight away, so we’ll have to try and stay consistent and see what we can do.”
Supporting Törnqvist is tactician Francesco Bruni and a mixed crew of seasoned pros including Kyle Langford, David Gilmour, Kinley Fowler, and Nick Hutton, as well as young up-and-coming Swedes such as Hugo Christenson and Ida Svensson. Bruni, who raced the last America’s Cup as a helmsman for the Italian Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli team, added: “As always in this class, it will go to the wire on the last couple of days, I’m sure. I just hope that our team will keep doing well as we have been this whole season. We are super excited to be going to Cowes.”
Aleph Racing, despite campaigning for the last 15 years, has not yet secured a World Championship win. With Pietro Loro Piana taking over the reins this season, the team is becoming increasingly consistent. Loro Piana, who has divided his professional life between London and Milan, is eager to experience sailing in the UK for the first time. “I’m truly curious and excited to see what Cowes is all about,” he says. “All of my crew have sailed there and tell me the legends about the currents and the sea state. So I’m looking forward to the event, not only because it’s a World Championship, but also because of the location. As always, sailing in this class is something else: Up until the last race, you never know who’s going to be on the podium and it truly shows that the level is the best of the best.”
Next on the leaderboard are two veterans of the 44Cup: Nico Poons’ Team Charisma and Vladimir Prosikhin’s Team Nika. Team Charisma recently regained Kiwi tactician Hamish Pepper and comes to Cowes as the winner of the last event in Marstrand. Poons, who previously won the RC44 Worlds in 2022 and 2023, remarked: “I don’t have that much expectation, because then the results are always better than when you go in with high expectations! The competition is so tight that anything can happen. And you need a bit of luck. Otherwise, one mistake and it can be dreadful…”
Britain’s Nic Asher is tactician on board Team Nika, which won in Puntaldia this year. The team comfortably won the 2025 season, claiming three events, including the World Championship in Scheveningen, the Netherlands. Prosikhin and Team Nika have won more RC44 World Championships than any other team.
Racing will take place on the Solent from 24-27 September, preceded by the King’s Cup charity event on 23 September, initiated by Team Aqua’s Chris Bake to raise money for local Isle of Wight charities, notably the Ellen MacArthur Cancer Trust.
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