New Zealand men’s dinghy sailor Tom Saunders isn’t out of medal contention, but dented his chances today.
The 32-year-old from Tauranga was awarded a BFD, which meant he was disqualified in his first race today and managed 13th (in a field of 43) in his other race.
He has slipped down the leaderboard and with two races left before the double-points medal race, he’s in 7th spot with 80 points. The field is headed by Australian Matt Wearn with just 38 points.
Saunders was disqualified, along with several other boats, for starting prematurely when the race was under a black flag. The penalty is maximum points, so it was the worst possible start to Saunders’ day.
“I was looking to capitalise and didn’t execute properly and got the BFD,” he said. “Then in the second race I was going alright but lost a few places towards the end. So not a great day.”
Saunders is hopeful that if he can string together a couple of good races tomorrow, he could still be in medal contention.
Greta Pilkington, New Zealand’s entry in the women’s dinghy, had placings of 17 and 21 today and after eight races has moved into 28th spot overall from 43 entries.
The kite events got under way today. In the men’s kite there were four races and Lukas Walton-Keim had placings of 12, 18, 14 and 10 to be 14th in the field of 20 at this early stage.
In the women’s kite, Aucklander Justina Kitchen recorded placings of 9, 11, 20 to be 13th after the first day’s racing.
Mica Wilkinson and Erica Dawson continue to prosper in the mixed multihull (nacra) and have now recorded places of 5, 3, 7, 2, 2 and 3 to lie second overall on 15 points.
The Italian boat leads with just five points, having had five wins. In this event there is a clear division between the best-performing boats and the rest and races are largely dominated by the same few boats.