Sailing: Aussie hubby and wife duo stake claim

HAPPY COUPLE: Aussie hubby and wife duo Nick and Janet Jerwood on their way to victory in the fifth race of the World Flying Fifteen Championship off Napier yesterday. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Bet against Aussie hubby and wife duo Nick and Janet Jerwood winning the World Flying Fifteen Sailing Championship off Napier at your peril.

The South of Perth Yacht Club clubmates who have been racing together for 30 years know what it takes to win world titles on New Zealand waters. The pair, who raced Ineffable to victory in yesterday's fifth race of the Lexus of Hawke's Bay-sponsored 21st world championship, won the 2005 world title when the event was hosted by the Royal Akarana club in Auckland.

Skipper Nick also boasts plenty of knowledge about the Hawke Bay conditions. This was collected when he coached Australia's contingent at the 2012 World Optimist Champs off Napier.

The pair, who were among the hot favourites at the start of the regatta after finishing fifth in last week's national championships, will start today's sixth race four points behind Great Britain's Steve Goacher and Tim Harper on the leaderboard.

"There are four or five boats I believe can win this championship. While we still have the opportunity I'm not over confident ... but it's still a possibility," Jerwood said.

The engineer agreed his wife, who is a nurse, and himself get on well together on and off the water.

"We usually put it together in the boat. I just hit the reset button when I get a bit grumpy. We know we've got to understand each other and we have to support each other when things are not going well."

This week's 57-boat event is the Jerwood's fifth world champs. They finished second in Hong Kong four years ago and have finished fourth on three occasions.

Jerwood pointed out team work and keeping their heads out of the boat paid off yesterday.

"We had two very difficult legs, we got to the top mark in the low teens and managed to get the bottom of the run wrong and lost a lot of spots there, I am guessing we were about 20th there. Things stated to get a bit better from there, we made a late decision to change gates at the bottom and it was a really good decision, put us on the right side of the course and we were able to pick a few good shifts which put us back into the top 10 and we took a few more as we progressed up to the beat to fourth so that was the best leg of the regatta for us so far from 20th to 4th."

"Two days to go but we still have to sail the best race you can, the wind is way too localised, you can be four or five boat lengths away from somebody and be in totally different conditions so you just have to sail the best you can with what you have at that point in time. It is just going to be a case of how fast you can get round that race course. We actually used toe straps for the first time in the regatta today and it was great so I am looking forward to more of that in the final two days." Jerwood added.

Goacher and Harper finished second yesterday and with the discard coming into play there were a few changes on the leaderboard. Previous leaders Matthew Owen and Andrew Reed from Canberra slipped to third overall and Queenslanders Ashley Smith and Adam Kingston who are racing under the Hong Kong flag are fourth overall after discarding a 35th.

Royal Akarana's Murray Gilbert and Jonathan Burgess are the best of the Kiwis in seventh place, 21 points behind Goacher and Harper. One point behind Gilbert and Burgess are the best of the Napier Sailing Club contingent, skipper Hayden Percy and Scott Pedersen, in Fflorin.

Sitting in ninth place are the Great Britain pair of Charles Apthorp and Alan Green who finished second to the Jerwoods in 2005.

Stronger breezes are predicted for today and tomorrow. These will suit some of the bigger crews who enjoy a bit of planing activity for which the Flying Fifteen is famous for.