FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Will Keilty Scores CORK’s First Ever Perfect Regatta in an Optimist Dinghy: Eight Races, Eight Wins
Eight starts, eight wins in a 84-boat fleet, a result with no precedent in CORK’s recorded results
KINGSTON, ONTARIO, 2026-08-09 — Will Keilty, 15, of Kingston, Ontario, won all eight races of the CORK International Optimist Regatta at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, finishing first in every start against an 84-boat gold fleet drawn from across Canada, the United States and Bermuda.
Keilty took the five qualifying races and all three final races on 2026-08-07 to 2026-08-09. His scoreline of eight firsts produced a total of eight points and a net of seven, the lowest score mathematically possible under the regatta’s scoring system. Because the series carried one discard, Keilty’s throw-out was itself a race win.
Brooks Pardi of the United States finished second on 13 points, and Zackaria Hashim of Port Credit Yacht Club took third on 30.
No previous Optimist sailor has won a CORK International Optimist Regatta with straight bullets. Keilty sails with LOOT (Lake Ontario Optimist Team) and the Royal Nova Scotia Yacht Squadron, and raced this event on the water he grew up on, having started sailing at the Kingston Yacht Club’s Wetfeet program at the age of 3.
The result caps a landmark season. In May, Keilty became the first Canadian ever to win an International Optimist Dinghy Association championship, taking the 2026 Optimist North American title on Halifax Harbour against a 172-boat fleet, opening with a 41st-place finish before reeling off six consecutive race wins. In June, he finished seventh overall at the 2026 Optimist World Championship in Tangier, Morocco, the best result by a Canadian sailor in the event’s 64-year history.
From 2026-07-29 to 2026-08-01 at Little Egg Harbor Yacht Club in Beach Haven, New Jersey, Keilty became the first Canadian ever to win the US Optimist National Championship, and the first non-American champion since an Argentine sailor lifted the trophy in 2001. He posted eight race wins, two seconds and a third across 12 races in a 319-boat fleet drawn from the United States, Canada, Hong Kong and Bermuda, discarding a sixth as his worst result and finishing on 15 net points, 70 clear of runner-up Margaux Nguyen-Minh of Hong Kong.
“In our CORK recorded history, no Optimist sailor has won this regatta with a perfect scoreline, so what Will did here is genuinely without precedent. Portsmouth Olympic Harbour has hosted world-class sailing for decades, and to see a result like this set by a Kingston sailor on home water is something our whole community can take pride in. Congratulations to Will, and to every sailor who made this one of the deepest Optimist fleets we have run.” said Rae-Marie Holmberg, General Manager, CORK/Sail Kingston.
“His starts and first beats were the difference. In 20 years coaching LOOT sailors at CORK, we have never seen anything like what Will has achieved this week; he is a generational sailing talent that will do big things in the future,” said Roberto Fabini, Coach, Lake Ontario Optimist Team.
“I could not have asked for a better week, and doing it at home in Kingston made it better. There were 84 boats out there and plenty of sailors who could have won any of those races. Thank you to my coaches, my LOOT teammates, and the CORK volunteers who were on the water before us every morning,” said Keilty.
About CORK/Sail Kingston
CORK/Sail Kingston is a non-profit, volunteer-driven organization based at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour in Kingston, Ontario. Founded in 1969 as the Canadian Olympic-training Regatta Kingston, CORK provided training water for sailors, coaches and officials ahead of the 1976 Montreal Olympic sailing events and has been a fixture on the international regatta calendar ever since. Since 2000, it has hosted dozens of North American and World Championships, and its summer program — Kingston’s Freshwater Sailing Festival — brings roughly 1,000 competitors, coaches and family members to the city each year across events from Optimist through to Olympic classes. More information is available at cork.org.
Media contact
Rae-Marie Holmberg, General Manager, CORK/Sail Kingston
(613) 545-1322 | sail@cork.org