After a postponement to the morning’s race schedule due to light winds, the afternoon breeze picked up to 10-15 knots across Biscayne Bay, with the women’s keelboat fleet managing three races in the improved conditions.

 

Ayton, Webb and Wilson started the day with a bang, with two race wins sandwiching a discardable 23rd from the second race, with them now ahead of the second-placed Russian boat by three points in the overall standings. 

 

It justitifed the team's ahead of double Olympic champion Shirley Robertson, who together with Annie Lush and Lucy Macgregor, are in 14th place.

 

In the Laser Radial class, Penny Clark has kept her nose in front in this first event of the potential three-regatta Olympic trials for the British women’s single-handers. 

 

Clark was consistent amid tricky and shifty wind conditions, finishing in sixth and ninth in the two races, while Charlotte Dobson dipped slightly to eighth place overall with results of 13,14 from today.

 

Lizzie Vickers is currently in 11th place with Andrea Brewster in 17th, while the two American sailors of Anna Tunnicliffe and Paige Railey top the leaderboard and are already enjoying a sizeable points margin over the rest of the 39-boat fleet.

 

In the Paralympic classes, Team GBR’s Sonar crew of John Robertson, Hannah Stodel and Stephen Thomas have boosted themselves up into second place – a race win and a fifth sees them now six points adrift of the leading German boat, while in the 2.4mR single-handed class, Helena Lucas is currently the top ranking British sailor in overall fourth place.

 

Lucas crossed in sixth place in the first of the fleet’s two races, but ran into trouble in the second.

 

She said: “I had a bit of an incident with one of the American boats coming up to the windward mark.

 

"I ended up with my boat head to wind and going backwards, so that wasn’t an ideal position to be in."

 

Lucas can discard the 18th place from that second race, and she’s now five points off the medal positions, with teammate Megan Pascoe six points behind in eight place.

 

In the two-person Paralympic SKUD class, Allan Smith and Jackie Gay are also just outside the podium spots after two days of racing – they picked up a steady 5,6, while Niki Birrell and Alexandra Rickham scored 8,7 to see them in eighth place overall.

 

Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson had a day they’d rather forget in the men’s keelboat Star class, picking up a penalty for a premature start in their first race of the day and then a 22 in their second. 

 

They are now in 17th place in the overall standings.