YACHTING - Pressure on for world champs

The America's Cup isn't the only yachting competition on the Iberian Peninsula at the moment. The ISAF Sailing World Championships start in Cascais, Portugal, this weekend.
Northland's Yngling yachting crew of Sharon Ferris, Raynor Smeal and Shandy Buckley are one of 34 Kiwi entries at the regatta, amounting to 48 sailors in total - all trying to qualify for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, now less than 14 months away.
The World Championships bring together all of the Olympic classes and results at the regatta will heavily influence Yachting New Zealand's selection policy for their team to Beijing.
Ferris' crew obviously need a good result in Portugal. They have spent the last two seasons drifting backward in the international rankings after reaching a ranking of world No.1 in 2006, due largely to a silver medal at the world championships in Austria the previous year.
They were dropped from the YNZ Olympic squad after several inconsistent results following that and matters came to a head when Buckley replaced Ashley Holtum in the crew at the beginning of this year.
The three have been training in Cascais for two weeks after what Ferris describes as a huge month.
The skipper, along with Briton Sam Davies, broke the recent Calais Round Britain Race record for women, before making a quick detour to the States to attend a wedding before heading to Portugal.
She said the challenge of making the top 10 at the event isn't beyond them and said they have been receiving plenty of support for the vital regatta.
"David our sail maker and more importantly for me, my cute brother is here with us, helping us to be faster and faster each day," she said.
Portugal is providing good sailing conditions with plenty of wind and Ferris said the crew is sailing well and are finding good speed on the water.
"We have Markus, our boat-builder, coming to work with us with the boat work list and then there are three more days of sailing before measurement on the July 2," she said.
Racing starts on Thursday and goes through to July 11, ahead of the gold medal race on the 12th.
Ferris's crew have dropped to eighth in the ISAF world rankings but if they can reach the gold medal race, they will be in the box seat for an Olympic nomination.
The combined world championships are held every four years, in the year prior to an Olympic year that sees different classes combine to have their world championships at the same time and at the same venue. Cadiz, Spain was the venue for the inaugural ISAF Sailing World Championships in 2003 following which Cascais was selected as the venue for 2007.
Kerikeri's Andrew Murdoch is also in action in the Laser class.
Murdoch already has the jump on his six Kiwi rivals for the Olympic nomination. He is already in the YNZ Olympic squad but top 10 performances by one of David Weaver, Josh Junior, Matt Blakey, Matt Coutts, Michael Bullot or Blair McLay, will open him up to competition for Beijing.