Sailing: Kiwis contenders at 49er European Championships

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are third overall at Weymouth. Photo / Lloyd Images

Kiwi sailors Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn are leading the standings at the 49er European Championships in Weymouth, England. The pair had three race wins and a fourth in their 98-boat fleet.

America's Cup duo Peter Burling and Blair Tuke had four top-three results to be third, with Josh Porebski and Trent Rippey 27th and Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie 28th.

Alex Maloney and Molly Meech are sixth in the 49erFX and Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders sixth in the Nacra 17 after two fourths and a third in their races.

The fresh conditions in Weymouth were a welcome change after the mostly light winds experienced at regattas in Palma and Genoa recently.

"We had cool racing conditions out there, with a good 15 knots and some good waves," said Saunders. "It was nice to stretch the legs out after most of the season being pretty light. We're happy with how we are going. We got three keepers.

"It's going to be one of the longest regattas we've ever done with apparently 19 races, or something crazy like that, so we just have to try to keep getting some top fives in qualifying and see how we go from there."

Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox had been hoping for racing at the 470 Europeans in San Remo to continue their climb up the leaderboard but three races were cancelled and they will now go straight into a top 10 medal race.

They have too much ground to make up on leaders Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan of Australia but are only eight points off Spain's Jordi Xammar and Nicolas Rodriguez in third.