Burling and Tuke open their World Champs Title Defence

Burling and Tuke open their World Champs Title Defence

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have opened their 49er World title defence with two race wins, and an 18th on the first day of the 2015 49er and 49erFX World Championships.

The regatta, which has attracted 61 boats in the men’s 49er fleet and 44 in the women’s 49erFX fleet, has just kicked off in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Another five days of racing are scheduled before the medals are decided.

Burling and Tuke, who were last week named 2015 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year, took a race win in their first race of the day, but an 18th followed in race two. Bouncing back they came away from race three with another win to lie 5th overall at this early stage of the series.

Talking last week after victory in the 2015 South American Championships, which served as a build-up regatta, Burling described the venue as tricky where the muddy coloured water made wind puffs hard to read.

“It is a really challenging place to get it right all the time – so it’s going to be tough venue to sail the World Championships,” he predicted. “It’s really rewarding when you get it right.”

A second kiwi crew, Markus Somerville and Aaron Hume-Merry, are also lying within the top ten with three single-digit results (9, 5, 9) from the first day of competition.

Currently standing in the top three places in the 49er are Croatia's Kostov and Cupac leading, Spain's Paz Blanco and Paz in 2nd while Poland's Przybtek and Kolodzinski are 3rd.

The NZL Sailing Team’s 49erFX pair of Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech are lying 20th. They sailed four races today placing 12th, 11th, 4th and 9th.

Racing resumes tomorrow when the women will race first.

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