Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are well placed to secure the gold medal at the 2015 Rio sailing test event, after another stellar day on the water.
New Zealand 49er sailors Blair Tuke and Peter Burling. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The New Zealand pair took two race wins on the penultimate day, and so did both their team-mates, the women's double-handed crews, on a day when the wind returned and all fleets managed at least two races.
Burling and Tuke will go into Saturday's 49er medal race with a 15-point leading margin.
The only crew in a position to take the gold from them are Nico Delle-Karth and Nikolaus Resch of Austria lying second overall, with Germany's Erik Heil and Thomas Ploessel lying third and 27 points adrift.
The men's skiff fleet managed four races today on Guanabara Bay. Burling and Tuke's results from the penultimate day include two race wins and two fourth places.
After two days off the water due to a lay day and then having racing cancelled, Tuke said it was good to get back out there.
"It's been a bit strange to do half the regatta then have two days off and then we had four races today, so it was good to get back into it and it was a really solid day for us."
"All of our races were good and we are really happy. We got a another couple of bullets and managed to extend our lead a little bit, which was great and to go into the medal race with a nice lead tomorrow, but still with a bit of work to do."
"We're happy with how we went today in some pretty tricky conditions."
Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie have sailed themselves back into medal contention with two days of competition left to run in the women's 470 class.
After lying ninth overall going into today Aleh and Powrie had their best day of the regatta so far posting an eighth and two race wins, clearly finding their groove in the increased breeze on the outer course area today, and climbing into third overall.
The 49erFX pair of Alexandra Maloney and Molly Meech were the third New Zealand crew to win two races and they're now lying fourth overall as they progress into the top-10 medal race.
Josh Junior is fifth in the Finn, Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders are sixth in the Nacra 17 and Andy Maloney is 11th in the Laser.