Tauranga sailor Peter Burling is among the best in the world in the Foiling Moth class following a fourth place finish at the 2011 International Moth Worlds held last week at Lake Macquarie in Sydney.

Pictured here is Tauranga sailor Peter Burling. See below for video action and interviews from the final day of the 2011 International Moth Worlds.

The worlds started with nine races over the first days three – the qualifying round used to divide the fleet into Gold and Silver fleets. Beautiful sunny conditions with wind up to 18 knots made for champagne sailing.

Nathan Outteridge, Peter's Australian 49er training partner, was dominant and top qualifier with Peter winning five of his nine races to be second qualifier in Gold fleet. Simon Payne of Great Britain and Bora Gulari of the United States of America, the previous two world champions, were outside the top 10 at this stage.

Sailors took their qualifying score (which counted as a single race) into Gold or Silver fleets with another nine races – nice for Peter taking only two points into the final stages of the regatta. The forecast was predicting a solid breeze over 20 knots for the rest of the week and that is exactly what the sailors got – exciting high speed racing ensued with the inevitable capsizes from these high performance 3.3 metre long boats. Many of the sailors recorded speeds of over 30 knots and that was just getting to the start line.

Day one of Gold fleet racing was in his words 'a shocker” for Peter – while on the first downwind in about sixth he failed to spot a Silver fleeter, who had somehow wandered onto the Gold fleet course. Evasive actions had Peter's sail just clip the other Moth's boom, causing a rip in Peter's sail – nursing his boat around the course with the rip continuing to grow he dropped to 14th.

A quick sail back to shore while the others boats sailed race two had Peter rigging an old sail up and back in time for race three. With fresh legs, Peter led around every mark of this race to record his first win in the Gold fleet. Nathan Outteridge had a great start finishing first, first and then fourth to take a stranglehold on the regatta.

Day two of Gold fleet was even windier – Silver fleet was held ashore while the Gold fleeters went out to do battle with the conditions. The wind was averaging 25 knots but coming off the shore in stronger bullets.

Facebook reported that all the leading boats were knocked down (capsized) on the first reach with a scramble to right the boats to see who could get going quickest.

Peter reported that after a breakage to his 'height-above-water-adjuster” from an initial capsize made his boat very unstable, he capsized another 20 times but soldiered on to finish 11th.

Sailors reported that the water felt like concrete when being catapulted from 1.5 metres high out of their moths at high speed. Fortunately the race committee sent the fleet in for repairs to boats and bodies while the conditions moderated. The wind dropped sufficiently early evening for another race where Peter scored a welcome second.

For the last day of competition, the sailors were out on the water three hours earlier than usual – hoping for lighter morning winds and to fit the last four programmed races in. The first two races were the lightest by that stage for the Gold fleet – Peter got off to a flier scoring a 2,1 to just sneak up into third overall.

As the wind increased, the Laser sailors started to shine – Tom Slingsby, three times Laser World Champion and International Sailor-of-the-Year 2010, won the penultimate race (he finished seventh overall).

Nathan Outteridge sealed the overall world title with a race to spare without having to sail the final race.

It was all on for the last race of the regatta for the other podium finishes.

Peter being one of five sailors in with a chance, but Scott Baggage, Australia won the final race to finish third overall, Joe Turner also of Australia, second overall, Peter Burling fourth overall and Bora Gulari from the United States of America fifth overall.

The next Moth Worlds, 2012, are in Italy immediately after the Olympics.