Sailing: British ride rough seas

OLYMPIC GAMES

Storms again interrupted racing for the eight classes competing in the Olympic sailing regatta off Savannah but not before British fortunes had bounced back from another couple of knocks.

Hopes of a blockbuster start by John Merricks and Ian Walker in the men's 470 dissolved when they were hit by a huge shift in the direction of the 10 to14-knot southerly wind. It dumped them to 22nd at the first mark, leaving them to work the middle of the fleet. They finished 15th in the race won by the defending gold medallist, Jordi Calafat of Spain.

"It was just guesswork," Merricks said. "It's a tough fleet and people are going to have to count bad scores. Guys who can turn bad positions into good ones are going to win. Normally we are good at that, so not to worry."

The women's 470 pairing of Bethan Raggatt and Sue Carr took fifth, though at one time they were running second to the eventual winners, Rusiana Taran and Olena Panholchyk of the Ukraine.

Ben Ainslie, with a protest from the Frenchman Guillaume Florent hanging over him after a pile-up in Tuesday's second race, in which he finished third, had to work up from 16th to seventh. He was back in form for the second race, finishing second, and the discard of his bad opening race makes him fourth overall, one point outside the medals.

Also in front of the jury last night was Penny Wilson, asking, in a case of Barcelona revisited, for redress because her second result on Tuesday was affected by gear failure on her Mistral board. She struggled yesterday, pulling up from 21st to 15th.

The downbeat feeling continued when Shirley Robertson incurred a penalty on the last reaching leg to the finish and, after doing her two 360-degree turns, filled 18th. She took advantage of her class continuing to race in the storm, by winning her next race. With it being the fourth race, she discarded the worst result to hold third.