KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Barbara Kendall held on to her second place overall in the women's RS:X (wind surfing) class after finishing a disappointing eighth in the medal race at the world yachting championships in Cascais, Portugal, today.
Her silver medal however earned New Zealand a seventh place in the sport at next year's Beijing Olympics.
Poland's 21-year-old Zofia Klepacka won the gold and Australian Jessica Crisp the bronze.
Kendall, 39, was in gold medal-winning position at one stage.
She led the fleet around the first mark while Klepacka had dropped back after falling off her board.
But Klepacka stormed through the fleet with her astonishing ability to read the shifty breeze perfectly before taking full control of the race on the downwind leg to the slalom finish.
Kendall, on the other hand, found some big holes and fell back, eventually crossing the line in eighth -- just enough to hold on to the silver medal.
"The conditions were very, very shifty and very radical out there," Kendall said later.
"Anything can happen in a race like this. You have to be a little bit lucky and a little bit fast and I missed out on the luck.
"On the downwind I was at the wrong place and everyone passed me and I was last at the bottom mark."
Kendall's was New Zealand's second silver medal at the championship after Andrew Murdoch finished second in the Laser.
New Zealand's Olympic berths are now confirmed in the Star, Laser, Laser Radial, Finn, Yngling and RS:X classes.
- NZPA
