Australian Olympic sailing representatives Nathan Outteridge and Ben Austin were planning to shed some weight and hoped history would repeat itself after they won the 49er World Championship in Sorrento, Victoria.

Heading into the final day of competition, the NSW pair led on countback from Britain's reigning World Champions Stevie Morrison and Ben Rhodes, with the Ukraine's 2004 Olympic silver medallists Rodion and Luca and George Leonchuk a further point back in third.

The last qualifying race was cancelled due to light wind and the top ten crews contested the final.

Outteridge and Austin wrapped up their first world title by winning the race.

"We wanted to stay nice and close to the British guys through the race and we stayed in front of the them for the duration," Outteridge said.

While the Australians will contest a number of events in Europe later this year, Outteridge regarded their world championship win as a good omen heading into the Olympic regatta in Beijing.

"The people who won the World Championships for the last two years have won the two test events in China, so hopefully we can keep that trend going," Outteridge said.

He revealed Austin and himself would allow themselves only a short period of indulgence before embarking on a weight loss program aimed at enhancing their medal prospects in the lighter conditions they anticipated in China.

"One of our big goals for the next two months is to try and lose a fair bit of weight, to try and get down 10 kilos between us, so we can be a bit more competitive in the light air," Outteridge said.

"We're going to have about a week off and just enjoy and reflect on the Worlds and when we get back home, we're just going to get stuck into the diet and fitness program and hopefully by March we can head to Europe and race at what (weight) we want to race at in China.

"Last year we were in a similar situation because we had the World Championship in Portugal in quite a windy venue and we came third and then we had to back up three weeks later in China where it was meant to be quite light," Outteridge said.

"We both did lose a fair bit of weight."

Outteridge said that on their way back from the European regattas, they planned to get further practice in China on at least a couple more occasions before the Olympics.

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