#49er – Belfast duo Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern continue to climb back up the leaderboard of the 49er European Championships in Portugal. Very light airs made for a tricky fourth day at the 49er and 49er FX regatta in Porto. After a long wait ashore for the breeze to fill in, the 49erFX sailors were sent home without any gold fleet finals racing today. By late afternoon a light breeze was blowing out to sea, and the 79-boat 49er men's fleet went out for two tricky races to complete their qualifying regatta before the gold fleet split.
Seaton and McGovern are now in 13th place having scored another nine and a three yesterday evening to move up from 18th overall. By contrast, the reigning Olympic Champions, Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen, suffered in the fickle conditions, falling from 3rd to 11th overall after scoring 13,22. Their big rivals, the reigning World Champions from New Zealand, keep on chipping away with some solid results.
Qualifying is now complete for both the men's and women's fleets, so Friday sees the start of Gold Fleet finals. The forecast is for better breeze, and you can watch all the action on the live TV broadcast which is scheduled for the start of racing this morning at 1030am local time HERE.
Top five
1. Jorge Lima / Jose Costa, POR, 24 points
2. Peter Burling Blair Tuke, NZL, 32
3. Lukasz Przybytek / Pawel Kolodzinski, POL, 35
4. Dylan Fletcher Scott / Alain Sign, GBR, 38
5. Jonas Warrer / Anders Thomsen, DEN, 39
Full results downloadable below.