Glenn Ashby (AUS) That was his 7th A-Class world title (14 world titles in all) that Glenn Ashby secured in light conditions in July - not his favoured weather at all. Then he hopped on a plane to race the F-18 Worlds with his former skipper Jimmy Spithill. Earlier in 2010 Ashby was judged by Spithill to have been ‘absolutely central’ to bringing the BMW Oracle sailing crew up to speed in time to win the 33rd America’s Cup. So not a bad year so far.

Mark Turner & Tim Smyth (NZL) We knew it had been a tough nine yards but while we were digging for our current series about the creation of the big tri USA it slowly dawned what an incredible technical achievement we had seen. The platform itself was challenging but relatively conventional (in the Seahorse sense!) but getting a wing rig to work pretty much first time out on such a scale was only possible if the build was absolutely inch perfect.