Aleh and Powrie back in front

Defending Olympic women’s 470 champions Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie proved a point today.

After their controversial disqualification yesterday, Aleh and Powrie needed to have a good day to keep their title defence on track.

They were fourth in the first race today and won the second. That meant that after the second day of racing they were in their rightful place – first. They have a total of six points, just ahead of Japan on eight. However, the New Zealanders don’t have a lot of room to manoeuvre because of their earlier disqualification.

Aleh said it was a “crazy” day.

“It was the biggest contrast you could find from yesterday,” she said.

“Today the waves were as big as we can handle. It was pretty on edge for us even in the 470 – it was awesome sailing. We were getting airborne a few times and the boat does not land well.

“It wasn’t too much about boat speed, it was just about hanging in there and not making too many mistakes and keeping Polly on the wire.”

Finn sailor Josh Junior had a much better day today, with fifth and third placings. That helped him pull himself up into 15^th place overall on 54, still well behind Briton Giles Scott on 18.

Junior was much hearted by his day’s racing.

“I finally found the front today,” he said. “It was a really breezy day with big waves out there. I managed to change a few things and finally got my boat going a bit faster and sailed a lot better, so I’m stoked.

“I’m just trying to get as much up the fleet as possible, race as many good races as possible and see what happens from there.”

In the men’s 470, Paul Snow-Hansen and Daniel Willcox struggled and could only manage 20^th and 15^th. That leaves them 11^th overall on 27 points, well off the pace of the Croatian leader who has just four.

The other New Zealand sailors in action today were Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders in the nacre mixed. They were fourth and second and after six races find themselves in fourth overall, on 27 points, 10 behind the leaders.

Jones said she and Saunders were relieved to come away with some solid results.

“It was four races in crazy winds, so it was a key day to just keep it together and we’re happy with how we finished it,” she said.