Charlotte Rose won the ILCA 6 Women’s World Championship on Sept. 12 in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, becoming the first American woman to claim the title in 21 years.

The Jacksonville University alumna finished with 23 points after posting second- and sixth-place finishes in the Final Series races, according to ILCA. Belgium’s Emma Plasschaert took silver with 28 points, and Denmark’s Anna Munch earned bronze with 34. Conditions were windy and wavy, with winds ranging from 12 to 17 knots.

Rose, 26, is only the third American sailor to win the event. Paige Railey was the last to do so, in 2005. Rose is also the first non-European champion in 20 years, since China’s Lijia Xu won in 2006.

The ILCA 6 is a one-person Olympic dinghy.

The championship drew 108 sailors from 44 countries, more than double the roughly 40-boat Olympic fleet, according to Jacksonville University and ILCA. The event was hosted by the National Yacht Club and Royal St. George Yacht Club in conjunction with ILCA.

Rose graduated from JU in 2022 after winning back-to-back singlehanded national championships in 2021 and 2022. She earned two Collegiate All-American honors and captained the JU Sailing Team while also training with the U.S. Sailing Team.

Her path to the world title ran through heartbreak. Rose finished second at the 2024 World Championships, then placed third at the U.S. Olympic Trials and missed the American berth for the Paris Olympics.

“I feel like losing the Olympic Trials doesn’t define me anymore,” Rose told JU in a Sept. 21 interview. “I left it on the coat hook and put it in the back of my closet. That chapter’s closed, and I wanted to be a different person and approach this campaign a lot differently than I did the last one.”

JU Head Sailing Coach Jon Faudree and the current JU Sailing Team watched Rose clinch the title from their team van just before competing at a regatta. Faudree said the moment was emotional, noting that many of his current sailors had never met Rose but were thrilled by the win. He called Rose “the ultimate competitor” and said she helped put JU sailing on the map.

Rose, an athlete in America One Racing’s Project Podium program, is targeting a gold medal at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.