Sailing: Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders earn money at Nacra 17 European Championships

Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders will be heading to the world sailing championships with full confidence after finishing second at the Nacra 17 European Championships in Poland (NZ Time).

The pair entered the last day in a tight three-battle for gold and sailed well to comfortably grab the money on the back of two seconds and an 11th before a sixth place in the top 10 medals of two points. The Italian combination of Ruggero Tita and Caterina Banti, who were the world 's best Nacra 17 all year, won gold with Spain' s Fernando Echavarri and Tara Pacheco.

Jones and Saunders held their best regatta of the year Fleet, banking 11 top-three placements including four race wins.

"It was a very, very good week for us," said Saunders. "We were very consistent all week and we had a lot of top-three finishes, which meant we were going very fast." 19659005 "We probably had our best regatta in terms of departures from events, it was nice enough to score some key points of our departures and we felt we trusted this place in the world. "

Jones and Saunders started the optimistic European season after spending the summer in New Zealand training with four other world class teams, including Kiwi compatriots Liv Mackay and Micah Wilkinson, the first main training block as teams were trying to master the new Nacra 17 that will be used at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, but it took time for They to be ranked 13th at the Princess Sofia regatta in Palma and 11th at the Hyeres World Cup before things started to be heard with a second at Medemblik and fourth place at the Kiel Week

. "We have made a lot of progress since the beginning of the year," Saunders said. "We have had a big summer block in New Zealand and we are only beginning to improve things that were highlighted at the beginning of the year when you are far from the rest of the fleet for so long. there is a risk, I suppose, that some areas are a bit weaker and we found out in Palma that we were not as fast as we would have liked to, but "we are very excited for the championships of the world in a few weeks because we are very happy with the way we sail, we have one more block in front of the worlds to refine. Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie finished 20th at the 49er European Championships. The rest of the best New Zealand skiffs, including Alex Maloney and Molly Meech, chose not to compete in the New Zealand regatta before the World Championships, but McHardie and McKenzie needed the race after missing the first one. part of the competition. McHardie's broke his foot.

The pair slipped into the gold fleet, registering a race win to be the 25th team to qualify, and improved five places in the final race.

Results of the night:

Nacra 17 (27 boats)

1st: Ruggero Tita / Caterina Banti (ITA) 1 3 2 4 3 1 (6) 1 1 (10) 1 1 1 1 14 – 34 points
2nd: Gemma Jones / Jason Saunders (NZL) (3) 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 8 2 (14) 2 2 11 12 – 47 pts
3rd: Fernando Echavarri / Tara Pacheco (ESP) 2 4 (5) 1 1 2 4 7 4 1 2 9 3 (13) 16 – 56 pts

49er Gold Fleet (25 boats)

1st: Diego Botín / Iago Marra (ESP) 5 6 6 2 1 7 2 1 1 (22) 8 6 8 12 (15) 4 – 69 pts
2nd: Do minik Buksak / Szymon Wierzbicki (POL) 2 (12) 12 1 3 1 5 5 11 9 4 2 (24) 2 9 8 – 74 pts
3rd: Dylan Fletcher-Scott / Stuart Bithell (GBR) 5 (10) 9 2 4 2 1 4 6 10 2 11 6 (20) ) 11 2 – 75 pts

20th: Isaac McHardie / William McKenzie (NZL) 13 12 20 7 15 6 6 5 (32 BFD) 1 12 (23) 9 15 14 – 135 pts