Israel’s first World champions in any sport, Zephania Carmel and Lydia Lazarov won their World title in 1969 in the Team 420 Non-Olympic Sailing Class at Sandham, Sweden. Carmel also won the World championship in the Individual event.

As teammates on Israel’s Zevulun Bateam Club, the twosome won the Israeli Championship in 1966 in the 420-Class and topped an international field of competition in the same event on New York’s Hudson River in August 1967. Carmel won the Israel National Individual event in 1970.

Carmel drowned in September 1980, while training on a windsurfing craft.