Issue date
Sam Meech lost some ground at the Princess Sofia regatta in Palma overnight (NZ time) but he's still in gold-medal contention heading into the business end of the event.
Sam Meech is second in the Laser fleet. Photo: Sailing Energy.
Meech is the best placed of the 26-strong New Zealand contingent in Palma, sitting in second in the Laser fleet. Andy Maloney is fifth in the Finn, Alex Maloney and Molly Meech sixth in the 49erFX, Josh Porebski and Trent Rippey ninth in the 49er and Liv Mackay and Micah Wilkinson ninth and Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders 10th in the Nacra 17.
The strong winds of day three made way for a light sea breeze which proved frustrating for many of the Kiwi sailors.
Meech was 22nd and 31st in today's two races, easily his worst of the regatta, which saw him drop from the top of the leaderboard to 18 points behind Australia's Matthew Wearn with one more day of gold fleet racing before the top 10 medal race.
"It was a bit of a tough day out there for me," Meech said. "I started pretty well in both races but just made some bad decisions up the first beats and in the second race I had to do a 720 [penalty turn] on the starboard layline which is never good.
"I feel like I'm still going fast and starting pretty well so I give myself a good chance for the rest of the regatta. I still have two more races to go tomorrow [before the medal race] and luckily I had a pretty good start to the regatta. I made it hard for myself but there's still more racing to come."
Fellow NZL Sailing Team member Tom Saunders won the second race of the day in the Laser fleet to move into 11th and he's aiming to qualify for the medal race and finish on a high.
Andy Maloney is in medal contention in the Finn, which represents a strong start to his career in the heavyweight dinghy. Maloney campaigned in the last Olympic cycle in the Laser before bulking up for last year's America's Cup with Emirates Team New Zealand.
Olympic champion Giles Scott of Great Britain has all but wrapped up the Finn title, and holds a commanding 27-point lead over Holland's Nick Heiner, with Maloney only six points further behind in fifth after posting a 13th and 14th overnight.
"It was a tricky day out there with a building sea breeze," he said. "I had to fight pretty hard today to get a couple of average scores but it could have been a lot worse.
"I'm looking forward to getting another crack at it tomorrow in hopefully a bit more breeze. There's still plenty to play for so I'm excited for another day."
Frustration has been the overwhelming theme for Alex Maloney and Molly Meech in the 49erFX. They still have a chance of finishing on the podium, considering they are only 16 points off third, but the Olympic silver medallists have struggled to put a series of good scores together.
"We have mixed feelings about our progress," Maloney said. "Besides the first day, we haven't got off the start line well enough so it has left us playing catch-up.
"Overall, we feel really excited to be here getting back into race mode but each day we come off the water with a feeling of frustration knowing we can do better."
It's what Jones and Saunders felt about yesterday, given they normally go well in strong winds, but they recovered some ground today with two good results including a win in the final race of the day.
The top two teams have established a handy gap on the rest of the fleet but only 20 points separate the next nine combinations with three more races tonight (NZ time) before the top 10 medal race.
"We sailed pretty well today," Saunders said. "We had two nice races and one when we had a bad start and couldn't get back from there. It was very much a day if you started well and sent it to the left you were going to be in the top five. Days like that are sometimes harder because everyone is trying to do the same thing so it was about executing. We got two out of three right.
"Hopefully we will have more breeze tomorrow and put three nice races together to get into the medal race. That would probably be a good result for us in our first [major] regatta back since last year's world championships. We definitely feel like we are blowing the rust off pretty quickly now and hopefully by the end of the regatta we will have some good experience and can look forward to the rest of the season."
The Princess Sofia regatta represents the first major European event for the majority of the 26 New Zealand sailors competing in Palma and has attracted nearly 1200 sailors and 840 boats from more than 60 nations across 13 classes.
Results and standings after the fourth day of the Princess Sofia regatta in Palma overnight (NZ time):
Men's 470 (79 boats)
1st: Mathew Belcher / William Ryan (AUS) 2 (13) 3 1 1 1 9 1 - 18 points
2nd: Deniz Cinar / Ates Cinar (TUR) 4 10 (UFD) 16 5 6 5 3 - 48 pts
3rd: Simon Diesch / Philipp Autenrieth (GER) 1 14 4 5 7 10 (32) 9 - 50 pts
18th: Paul Snow-Hansen / Daniel Willcox (NZL) 9 12 14 2 (21) 17 20 12 - 86 pts
Women's 470 (48 boats)
1st: Camille Lecointre / Aloise Retornaz (FRA) 2 (22) 2 10 1 1 1 4 - 21 pts
2nd: Hannah Mills / Eilidh McIntyre (GBR) (19) 9 2 2 2 3 4 2 - 24 pts
3rd: Ai Kondo Yoshida / Miho Yoshioka (JPN) 2 4 7 (12) 4 5 8 1 - 31 pts
Silver Fleet
30th: Courtney Reynolds-Smith / Brianna Reynolds-Smith (NZL) 15 13 9 12 8 8 5 (DNC) - 69 pts
49er (91 boats)
1st: Dylan Fletcher-Scott / Stuart Bithell (GBR) 12 1 5 1 1 2 (19) 4 1 6 9 1 - 43 pts
2nd: Lukasz Przybytek / Pawel Kolodzinski (POL) 8 5 2 (UFD) 1 2 8 1 5 - 54 pts
3rd: Yago Lange / Klaus Lange (ARG) 7 7 10 4 2 3 1 2 13 3 3 (15) - 55 pts
9th: Josh Porebski / Trent Rippey (NZL) 10 8 13 4 3 12 6 5 3 10 7 (17) - 81 pts
Silver fleet
26th: Logan Dunning Beck / Oscar Gunn (NZL) (15) 13 15 3 12 1 2 4 6 8 1 2 - 67 pts
49erFX (54 boats)
1st: Annemiek Bekkering / Annette Duetz (NED) 1 1 (8) 1 3 1 4 1 1 8 8 1 - 30 pts
2nd: Ida Marie Baad Nielsen / Marie Thusgaard Olsen (DEN) 1 2 8 2 5 6 2 1) 5 10 (18) 2 - 53 pts
3rd: Odile Van Aanholt / Marieke Jongens (NED) 3 5 5 9 2 12 (16) 7 7 2 5 5 - 62 pts
6th: Alex Maloney / Molly Meech (NZL) 2 13 1 3 12 7 12 6 4 9 (19) 9 - 78 pts
Finn (73 boats)
1st: Giles Scott (GBR) 6 3 8 (11) 3 6 2 5 - 33 pts
2nd: Nicholas Heiner (NED) 18 (21) 13 16 2 12 6 3 - 70 pts
3rd: Nils Theuninck (SUI) 1 12 9 4 (43) 27 12 7 - 72 pts
5th: Andy Maloney (NZL) 16 (48) 19 6 7 1 13 14 - 76 pts
27th: Josh Junior (54) 38 37 24 4 9 29 17 - 158 pts
58th: Brendan McCarty (NZL) 63 50 (BFD) 55 42 46 39 57 - 352 pts
60th: Raymond Hall (NZL) (60) 17 54 57 48 60 39 57 (66) 64 - 360 pts
Laser (183 boats)
1st: Matthew Wearn (AUS) 5 2 6 (24) 2 1 5 4 - 25 pts
2nd: Sam Meech (NZL) 1 2 5 8 4 1 22 (31) - 43 pts
3rd: Tonci Stipanovic (CRO) 6 12 2 (20) 3 5 15 8 - 51 pts
11th: Tom Saunders (NZL) (30) 6 1 9 25 14 19 1 - 75 pts
24th: Andrew McKenzie (NZL) 5 7 (43) 1 17 26 39 27 - 122 pts
30th: George Gautrey (NZL) 27 8 19 7 36 6 35 (44) - 138 pts
Silver fleet
164th: Matthew Kempkers (NZL) 43 27 46 47 (DNC) DNC 43 18 - 286 pts
Laser Radial (113 boats)
1st: Anne-Marie Rindom (DEN) 9 8 3 2 3 2 2 (22) - 29 pts
2nd: Marit Bouwmeester (NED) 16 1 3 6 1 4 6 (BFD) - 37 pts
3rd: Alison Young (GBR) 6 7 9 4 7 1 23 (27) - 57 pts
26th: Susannah Pyatt (NZL) (40) 4 36 7 29 26 38 15 - 146 pts
38th: Olivia Christie (NZL) 12 40 14 28 8 (45) 33 35 - 170 pts
Nacra 17 (47 boats)
1st: Ruggero Tita / Caterina Banti (ITA) 1 1 3 6 1 3 2 2 1 (12) 5 2 - 27 pts
2nd: Ben Saxton / Nicola Boniface (GBR) 2 1 3 1 1 2 10 8 (15) 1 1 4 - 34 pts
3rd: Iker Martinez / Olga Maslivets (ESP) 5 4 6 7 3 4 (DNC) 20 10 2 2 3 - 66 pts
9th: Liv Mackay / Micah Wilkinson (NZL) 17 3 9 4 4 18 1 1 2 (20) 12 11 - 82 pts
10th: Gemma Jones / Jason Saunders (NZL) 5 14 4 10 3 8 6 13 (16) 5 16 1 - 85 pts
Men's RS:X (118 boards)
1st: Louis Giard (FRA) 3 3 3 3 3 1 4 (7) - 20 pts
2nd: Sebastian Fleischer (DEN) 3 4 3 6 4 4 3 (14) - 27 pts
3rd: Pawel Tarnowski (POL) 2 3 4 7 2 2 8 (18) - 28 pts
Silver fleet
85th: Antonio Cozzolino (NZL) 27 21 33 23 9 12 (UFD) 1 - 126 pts
Full results here
