9:48 PM Mon 29 Mar 2010 GMT
Australian crews had another positive day on the water at round three of the ISAF Sailing World Cup in Spain with Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page remaining in the top five of the men's 470 fleet while Katie Spithill moved directly into the Gold group of the Women's Match Racing with Nicky Souter aiming to join her by progressing through the repechage.
Belcher and Page started the day in first position in the highly competitive 100 boat men's 470 fleet and had a sixth, second and 11th place finish to end day two in fifth overall.
The Australian Sailing Team crew currently sits on 20 points, just seven behind the leading Greek crew of Panagotis Kambouridis and Gerasimos Orologas with four days of racing remaining.
'Today was a tough day of racing,' said Belcher. 'We only had two to five knots all day making it very light and tricky. After two days our results look ok, it could have been a lot worse but we've done quite well after only limited preparation.'
'We're in a good position and it's a long week of racing, so we're definitely still in there,' he said.
'With such a big fleet the results are very mixed, Nicolas Charbonnier from France who is currently ranked third in the world wasn't able to crack the top 15 in any of the day's three races so we're pretty happy with where we sit.'
The Australian Sailing Team crew found themselves fighting back through the fleet a number of times throughout the day.
'We haven't been starting too well so far this regatta and have found ourselves down the leader board at the top mark in each race,' said Belcher. 'In the last race we were way down in the low 20s and did well to come back to eventually finish 11th.'
'We're sailing smart but struggling a bit off the line, when you've got 50 boats fighting for the line you've got to be on your game for where you want to go.'
'Heading into tomorrow we're going to keep on doing what we're doing to get ourselves into the Gold fleet and see how we go from there,' he said.
The two Australian Women's Match Racing crews have progressed to the next round of competition with Katie Spithill, Olivia Price and Rayshele Martin moving straight into the Gold group after finishing the opening round second in their group with Nicky Souter, Nina Curtis and Jessica Eastwell set to compete in the repechage with the top two crews moving through.
Spithill and Souter finished the opening day round for second place in the group with four wins and three losses but it was Spithill who progressed straight through on a count back after winning the battle of the Australian crews.
'Today was an alright day for us,' said Souter. 'We had three races left in the opening round robin and managed to win two of them while Katie won all three.'
'It's been really light, shifty and choppy here, making it quite difficult,' she said. 'In one race today our pre-start began in less than two knots, which is very foreign to us as we're use to sailing in the sea breeze we get in Sydney.'
The two Australian crews are enjoying the opportunity to compete against the top women's match racing crews in the world.
'The top 10 crews in the world are racing here so it's a good chance to see where we sit,' said Souter. 'The results are very mixed from the last World Cup event in Miami, so we can see that some teams have been working incredibly hard over the last two months.'
'We're all looking forward to tomorrow, it's a clean slate and with up to 30 knots of wind expected it will be very different to what we've had in the last two days,' she said.
The Australian Sailing Development Squad men's 470 crew of Sam Kivell and Will Ryan finished day two in 54th position, after a 23rd, 29th and 41st place finish. The pair will be pushing hard on day three to move up the ladder and into the Gold fleet for the finals series.
In the Star class Australians Paul McKenzie and Phil Toth is 20th overall, after a 14th and 20th in the day's two races.
For more information go to
www.australiansailingteam.com.au
by Craig Heydon
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