On a day when British crews won medals in three of the four finals, Scott – who lost out on London 2012 selection to the triple Olympic champion – ensured his was a golden one after starting the final race in overall first place in the heavyweight dinghy fleet.

Needing to prevent any boats getting between him and the second-placed Dutchman Pieter Jan Postma to claim the coveted Finn Gold Cup for the first time, he left it late before securing the prize.

Up until the final run of the three-lap race, Denmark's former world champion Jonas Høgh-Christensen was sandwiched between the race leader Postma and Scott to relegate the Skandia Team GBR sailor to the silver medal spot.

But the 24-year-old slowly reeled his competitors back in, and eventually overtook the Dane on the final downwind leg of the 10-boat race to cross the line in second behind Postma and claim the world title by just one point.

"World champion sounds pretty good, doesn't it?" said Scott, the son of John Scott, the former chief executive of Glasgow 2014. 

"Obviously I'm over the moon – it's taken me back a little bit and I'm not really quite sure what to make of it at the moment."

Scott's win went some way towards making up for the disappointment of missing out on the 2012 selection spot to Ainslie, who, despite being disqualified from the final two races following his protest boarding of a television boat he felt had impeded him, turned out to watch his teammates in the medal race and was quick to congratulate the new world champion.

Scott admitted:  "A month ago I was actually probably struggling for a bit of motivation, especially having lost the selection and that slowly sinking in.

"Fortunately I managed to pull myself through that and put some decent training in and I managed to get myself in the situation where I could win the worlds and it's just great."

Scott confessed that he did not have the easiest of medal races, saying: "It's a bit of a story of all my medal races recently.

"I like to keep things close.

"It was very tricky because as soon as I made any ground up on Jonas, PJ came and slapped one on me and sent me back down again.

"It was difficult but great to pull through on the last run."

Britain also secured the bronze medal in the class through Ed Wright (pictured).


The defending world champion had a bad start, after re-crossing the startline thinking he was over early, and had to comeback through the fleet to finish the race in fifth and maintain his overall third spot.

The Bournemouth-based sailor was pleased with his podium finish after a tough start to the week, and was pleased to relinquish his crown to one of his teammates.

"It's amazing how everyone just keeps on improving and improving [in the British Finn squad] and it's great for Giles to go away with the win," Wright said.

"It's probably better for at least another Brit to win if it can't be me."

Completing the set of medals for Britain on the day with a silver in the 470 men's class were Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell, who led the medal race from start to finish.

A gold medal was a theoretical possibility for the British duo heading in to the final race, but with the Australian titleholders Mat Belcher and Malcolm Page 18 points ahead, Patience and Bithell were focussed on their own race and protecting silver.

After a good start they took an early lead and never looked back, winning the race and claiming their second World Championship silver since teaming up in 2009.

"We're feeling great, we're really happy," said Patience.

"It's been a really long week and me and Stuart have worked so hard for this regatta.

"So much of our training for the last three or four months has been towards this week.

"I know we're not standing on the gold position on the podium, and that's what we intended to be, but it's been a hard week and the Australians have sailed fantastically, so we're happy to be stood on the podium with a silver medal."

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