Ashim Mongia, who had finished second in the Goa World Championships in 1997 with Pushpendra Garg as his crew, finished first in three races but it was their three bad races that pegged them back.

Going into the final race, Mongia-Mahesh had to win it and hope that Viljoen finish worse than fifth. Mongia-Mahesh won it but the SA pair were third and that settled the argument.

Originally eight races were slated for the championships, but due to troubled wind conditions and couple of off days, the number of races were reduced to seven. Today three races were held. The first (fifth in the series) in very light conditions in which Mongia-Mahesh were fourth. The sixth race had moderate winds but Mongia-Mahesh had apoor race finishing sixth. They came back well in the final race in strong wind conditions. But the Viljoen-Rowley pair spoiled their party.

It is the first time that a South African pair has won the world title.

The other Indian pair, Naresh Yadav and Girdhari Yadav finished eighth. That was largely due to bad finishes in the sixth and seventh races where they were 14 and 12th respectively.

Overall positions (after discarding worst race)

(Results of each race in parenthesis)

1. Llewellyn Viljoen-Pete Rowley, RSA (6,7,2,2,1,3,3) 17 PPs

2. Ashim Mongia-Mahesh Ramachandran, India (1,1,9,8,4,6,1) 21

3. Roy van Maanen-Neil van Maanen, Ireland (3,2,3,dsq,9,4,2) 23

4. Simon Corper-Sue Pinnell, GBR (4,8,4,4,2,2,9) 24

5. Sean Craig-Leslie Ryan, Ireland (2,3,8,6,7,5,5) 28

6. Peter Jackson-James Dyas, GBR (7,4,7,dsq,6,1,4) 29

7. Pat Mitchell-Peadar Mitchell, RSA (9,6,1,1,8,10,6) 31

8. Naresh Yadav-Girdhari Yadav, India (5,5,6,5,5,14,12) 38

9. Russell Short-Michelle Rowley,GBR (8,11,10,3,3,8,7) 39

10. Neil Piper-Sarah Green, GBR (10,9,5,9,10,7,8) 48