World champion 49er sailors Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have won Yachting New Zealand's Sailor of the Year award.
There was tough competition, including from women's 470 world champions and International Sailing Federation female sailors of the year, Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie.
However, in the year to September 31, Tauranga's Burling and Tuke, from Kerikeri, won the European Championship, the world title and were skipper and tactician with the Youth America's Cup-winning team. The pair have been awarded the Sir Bernard Fergusson Trophy.
At the awards function in Auckland last night, performance honours were also handed out to Aleh and Powrie; 49erFX world champions Alex Maloney and Molly Meech; to Team New Zealand; and to the two New Zealand teams who made the podium at the Youth America's Cup.
Tauranga 20-year-old Meech was named Young Sailor of the Year, while Nick Egnot-Johnson, of the Murrays Bay club, won the Emerging Talent award, for wins in the Australian Optimist national championships and the North Island championships.
