In the second installment of our exclusive three-part feature on Enzo Balanger's spectacular victory at the 2025 Moth World Championship, the French sailor talks about the hardware – the boat and a new steel rudder – that helped him win.
The Moth Class has a reputation for rapid evolution, so it was perhaps surprising to hear that Balanger won the 2025 world championship using a one-and-a-half-year-old Mackay Bieker V3. Moreover, he says he plans to keep the same boat – ‘platform’ as he describes it – to try to defend his title next year in Perth, Australia.
“They have done a really nice job with this design,” he told me. “They have found big gains in terms of righting moment and drag and the systems are all working really well.”
Although there were few changes to the platform between the Auckland and Garda world championships, Balanger said the biggest step forward was around the adoption of metal foils.
I check-in with Tudor Team Alinghi’s director for technical and sailing, New Zealand America’s Cup veteran Dave Endean – the man in charge of making sure that in AC38 the Swiss syndicate improves on its somewhat lacklustre performance in the last Cup in Barcelona.
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