World champions Peter Burling and Blair Tuke remain top of the 49er standings after the latest day of sailing in their class at the World Championships in Spain.
New Zealand sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling on the 2012 Olympic medal podium. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The New Zealanders started the day with a win and despite suffering a disqualification in the second race, after a collision and capsize at the leeward mark, the in-form crew are not adversely affected as they can discard the poor score given their clean run of single-digit results across the first 10 races.
World and Olympic champions Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie have slipped to second going into the medal race in the women's 470 regatta, after a third and a fifth place in some close racing with Austrian rivals Lara Vadlau and Jolanta Ogar.
With medal race scores counting for double this sets the stage for an almighty winner-takes-all battle between them and the Austrians.
Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox moved up to 12th overall in the men's 470, however it wasn't quite enough to secure the pair a place in tomorrow's medal race and that will count as their final result.
In the women's skiff class Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech are lying 11th dropping a couple of places on the leaderboard. They have Saturday up their sleeve to break back into the top ten before Sunday's medal racing, although a title defence would require them to close a 51 point gap to the leaders.
Both New Zealand's Finn sailors made gains after their two races, relishing the windy conditions in Santander.
Andrew Murdoch took second place in the second race and has jumped up to fifth, while Josh Junior is now eighth and just four points back from team-mate Murdoch among a tightly bunched group on the scoreboard.
The Finn class has one more day of finals racing to determine the top ten for Sunday's medal race, both Murdoch and Junior well positioned to feature.
