Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox wanted to see how they stacked up against the rest of the fleet at the 470 world championships in Greece and they are well in contention after the first day of racing.
The pair are competing in their first major regatta since last year's Rio Olympics so were looking forward to measuring themselves against their competitors after a long absence from racing. They registered three good results - third, seventh and sixth - to sit in eighth overall.
The Swedish pair of Anton Dahlberg and Fredrik Bergstrom had a near-perfect day with a 1, 2, 1 scorecard sailing in the yellow fleet - the 72 boats are split into two fleets for the first two days of racing before they are seeded - and hold a three-point advantage over Mat Belcher and Will Ryan of Australia and Turkey's Deniz Cinar and Ates Cinar. But there is a considerable logjam at the top of the leaderboard with nine points separating the next 17 crews.
Among them are Snow-Hansen and Willcox who posted three consistent scores on a day when the thermal breeze built from 8-10 knots to 15-16 knots. Crucially, they don't have a big score on their card like some other teams meaning the three results are likely to be bankers as the week progresses - crews can discard their worst score of the week.
"It was a good breeze and good for racing," Willcox said. "We had a consistent day.
