Aleh and Powrie in the medal hunt

Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie are one point off the lead, in second place as the 2010 Women’s 470 World Championship heads into the penultimate day of racing in the Netherlands.

Conditions off the Hague, Netherlands allowed for three races to be sailed overnight, the NZL Sailing Team pair of Aleh and Powrie recording a DNF in the first race of the day. They recovered to resume their impressive results record with a 3rd and a 2nd, the DNF gets discarded and they remain well and truly in the medal hunt as the regatta draws towards its conclusion.

It was the local girls who shone today in the Netherlands with Lisa Westerhof and Lobke Berkhout climbing up to overtake the overnight leaders by winning all three races sailed. The New Zealanders managed to stay in touch with their performance on the water separated by just one point on the leader board.

The Italians who shared the lead with the kiwis at the start of the day have slipped to third place, six points adrift of second place.

Two more days of the regatta will determine the world titles for both Women and Men in the Olympic double-handed class, with more finals racing on the penultimate day and just the top ten placed sailors sailing in the high pressure medal race on the final day.

The best placed crew of the three New Zealand boats in the Men’s event are Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders lying 21st and now sailing in gold fleet.

"Today we placed 11th, 19th and 19th in 15-27 Knots. Leaving us in 21st place with four races to go," report the New Zealanders.

"The highlight of the day was in the second race where we won around the top mark in one of the windiest races we have competed in. The lowlight was capsizing at the bottom mark and loosing our spinnaker pole. We managed to catch back up to 7th but lost a lot downwind with no pole."

The New Zealand 470 crews are supported by coaches Nathan Handley and Hamish Willcox.

New Zealand's current standings

Women’s 470 World Championship (62 boats)
2nd Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie (2, 2, 1, 4, 3, dnf, 3, 2)
23rd - Melinda Henshaw and Bianca Barbarich-Bacher (5, 12, 9, 19, 12, 25, 28, 16)
54th - Sarah and Emma Berry (28, 25, 30, 15, 25, 15, dns, dns)

Men’s 470 World Championship (119 boats)
21st - Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders (16, 9, 15, 10, 6, 11, 19, 19)
31st - Geoff Woolley and Dan Willcox (37, 12, 5, 15, 5, 27, 35, 22)
62nd - Francisco Lardies and Finn Drummond (28, 8, 26, 14, 4, dns, 2, dns)

Links:
Regatta website
International 470 class website
New Zealand 470 class website

About this regatta:
The International 470 Class is the class of boat used for both the men’s two person and women’s two person dinghy events at the Olympic Games. Used as Olympic equipment since 1976, where the class was sailed as an open event before the introduction of separate events for men and women in 1988, the 470 is sailed in more than 61 nations around the world.

This year 119 men and 62 women are in the Netherlands to compete for the ultimate titles of 2010 Men’s and Women’s 470 World Champion.