Meech falters but still in race

WELLINGTON: Sam Meech is the best placed Kiwi sailor after four days of the Princess Sofia Trophy regatta in Spain, despite having an off day.

Meech is the best placed of the 26strong New Zealand contingent in Palma, sitting second in the Laser fleet.

He finished 22nd and 31st in two races overnight (NZ time), easily his worst of the regatta, which resulted in him dropping from the top of the leaderboard to 18 points behind Australia’s Matthew Wearn, with one more day of racing before the top10 medal race.

Andy Maloney is fifth in the Finn, Alex Maloney and Molly Meech sixth in the 49erFX, Josh Porebski and Trent Rippey ninth in the 49er, and Liv Mackay and Micah Wilkinson ninth, and Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders 10th in the Nacra 17.

The strong winds of day three made way for a light sea breeze, which proved frustrating for many of the Kiwi sailors.

Meech admitted he had had a tough day.

‘‘I started pretty well in both races but just made some bad decisions up the first beats and in the second race I had to do a 720 [penalty turn] on the starboard layline, which is never good,’’ he said.

‘‘I still have two more races to go tomorrow [before the medal race] and luckily I had a pretty good start to the regatta. I made it hard for myself but there’s still more racing to come.’’

Fellow NZL Sailing Team member Tom Saunders won the second race of the day in the Laser fleet to move into 11th and he is aiming to qualify for the medal race and finish on a high.

Andy Maloney is in medal contention in the Finn, which represents a strong start to his career in the heavyweight dinghy.

He campaigned in the last Olympic cycle in the Laser before bulking up for last year’s America’s Cup with Emirates Team New Zealand.

The leading European regatta has attracted 1200 sailors competing in 13 classes. — NZN