NZL Sailing Team - Burling and Tuke take the lead in 49er Europeans
by Sail-World.com NZL on 11 Jul 2015
Burling and Tuke - 2015 49er Europeans - Day 5 49er European Championship
Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have taken the lead at the 49er European Championships on Day 5 of the regatta on now in Porto, Portugal.
Today, Friday, the 49ers transitioned into gold fleet finals and Burling and Tuke have once again risen to the top of the leader board, opening up a solid points margin over the chasing pack to boot.
A second, seventh and a race win from today puts the seemingly unstoppable Kiwis 10 points ahead of the fleet.
Peter Burling describes the day, “Good to get back into gold fleet racing today, there was 7-12 knots of sea breeze with a large underlying swell.”
“We build on our qualifying series with three solid races, and that puts us into a strong position going into the final two days.”
New Zealand has two crews placed in the top ten of the
49erFX fleet going into the final day of racing for the women.
Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech started today with a race win, then went on to add two more solid results with a sixth and a seventh to improve their overall placing up to sixth. After today, just seven points separate Maloney and Meech from third place.
Meanwhile the young crew of Erica Dawson and Ellie Copeland have broken into the top ten with a fifth, second and 14th in today’s three gold fleet races.
Saturday sees the women complete their championship with three Gold Fleet races in the morning and a Medal Race finale on the River Douro in the afternoon. For the men it’s the penultimate day of Gold Fleet racing.
The forecast is for medium airs, and you can watch all the action on the live TV broadcast by clicking here which is scheduled for the start of racing on Saturday at 10.00am local time in Portugal or 9:00pm New Zealand time.
2015 49er & FX European Championships current standings…
49er:
1st Peter Burling and Blair Tuke
29th (4th Silver Fleet) Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski
49erFX
6th Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech
9th Erica Dawson and Ellie Copeland
Full 49er results are here and the 49erFX results are here
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