Sailing: Burling and Tuke take lead

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have climbed to second in Argentina. Photo / Getty

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have recovered from a mixed opening two days at the 49er world championships in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to take the overall lead as the regatta hits the halfway mark.

Burling and Tuke claimed two race wins and an eighth in Argentina today to move into the lead in the battle to defend their 49er world crown. The Kiwi pair hold a handy 17-point lead over Spain's Federico Alonso and Arturo Alonso Tellechea, who lie in second place.

"It was another solid day for us," Tuke said. "Our first goal at these events, with qualifying, is to make it through to gold fleet in a position to be able to push for the lead in the second half of the week when the racing steps up. So to have a little lead at this stage of the week is good."

Conditions in Argentina were again on the light and tricky side, requiring tenacious decision-making and persistence.

"The wind was looking really nice on the sail out and for the first beat of the first race. We had around 12 knots," Tuke said. "From there it got really tricky. Quite big wind shifts and it dropped to around 6 knots. We raced the last two races in about 7-9 knots."

Talking about defending their world title this week, Burling said, "For us the end goal is pretty clear. We started this campaign a while back and it was to go and try and get gold in Rio.

"We're not really too worried about all this stuff that's going on in the interim, we're just trying to keep that in mind and there are times where you're concentrating on things that try and improve the end performance.

"Blair and myself really enjoy that pressure and that challenge of having to perform under it."

Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech continue to ascend the 49erFX leaderboard leaping another five places on day three and breaking into the top 10 as the regatta shifts up a gear and into finals racing.

Despite the tough conditions, the Kiwi women managed a third, an 11th and a fourth on the water today to lie 10th overall at the end of day three.

Three other Kiwi crews competing in the men's division will race the remainder of the regatta in silver fleet after finishing outside the top half of the 61-strong fleet in Argentina.

2015 49er and 49erFX World Championships
49er (61 boats)
1st Peter Burling and Blair Tuke (1, 18, 1, 4, 5, 1, 1, 8)
40th Markus Somerville and Aaron Hume-Merry (9, 5, 9, 25, 25, 17, 30, 21)
49th Isaac McHardie and Trent Rippey (28, OCS, 14, 23, 19, 28, 17, 4)
61st Logan Dunning-Beck and Jack Simpson (DNC, 30, 30, 28)
49erFX (44 boats)
10th Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech (12, 11, 4, 9, 6, 3, 11, 4)