Two race wins, sparked by a change of strategy, have catapulted Kiwi 49er sailors Logan Dunning Beck and Oscar Gunn into the lead – and within sight of their first gold medal of the season – at the Princess Sofia Regatta.

The pair jumped 10 places to the top of the gold fleet after a tweak to their starting approach on the first day of finals racing in Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

After three days of qualifying heats, more than 1200 sailors across 10 Olympic classes have been split into gold and silver fleets, leading to plenty of movement on the leaderboards.

'The first day of gold fleet is always a moving day and there's always a lot of shuffling on the leaderboard. It's when the real racing begins and you get to race everyone in that top 25,” says Oscar.

'The plan for us today was just to improve on our starting from the earlier part of the regatta, so we made some changes overnight to the way we approached the start line. We wanted to ensure we got some good starts and then just have a clear plan of how the race would play out. And it's kind of how things went.”

Dunning Beck and Gunn have now risen 21 spots over the last two days and are five points clear of Poland's Lukasz Przybytek and Jacek Piasecki.

Hot on their heels are fellow Kiwis Isaac McHardie and William McKenzie, who have been near the front of the fleet all regatta.

The pair took out today's first race and are third overall – only six points behind Dunning Beck and Gunn.

Despite vying for the same 49er spot at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, the two teams have been working closely together as part of Yachting New Zealand's high-performance approach over the past year – ramping up their efforts on speed and equipment testing during the NZ summer.

'It was a solid day for both teams,” says Oscar. "They [McHardie and McKenzie] didn't have the best start but were going really fast and managed to get themselves back into that top bunch.”

There will be one more day of gold-fleet racing before the medal race on Sunday.

'It's going to be an exciting end to the regatta. The points are all close, so it's all to play for,” says Oscar.

'Another good day tomorrow really puts us in a good position going into the medal race.”

Tauranga's Veerle ten Have. Photo: Sailing Energy.

Also in podium contention is Veerle ten Have, who sits third after winning the first of her two medal races in the iQFOIL (windfoiling) class for women.

Ten Have is only 17 points behind leader Lola Sorin of France.

'It felt really good to finally get a race win – it's been coming,” says Veerle. 'I got a bit stuck in the second race – it got really, really light and I was probably last coming through the start. Because I have worked so much on my fitness over the last year, I was able to pump the rest of the race down and gain a lot of that ground back and still ended up with a top-10 result, which I was happy with.”

The 22-year-old from Tauranga is cautiously optimistic about silverware in her first European outing of the season.

'Today's results don't mean too much, as we can still drop a few tomorrow,” she said.

'It'll shuffle around just as much tomorrow as it did today, so I'll just go out there and do my best.”

Josh Armit remains in the hunt too. He is in eighth in the men's iQFOIL division – after a race win to end his day.

Former ILCA 7 (Laser) world champion Tom Saunders is third, two points off silver and 18 behind competition leader – Britain's Michael Beckett.

Saunders managed an eighth and ninth but was ruing a disqualification for a false start in the second race.

'It was still a pretty tough day out there and Micky was the only guy who really had things figured out,” Saunders said.

'I'm kicking myself a bit for letting a few opportunities slip on top of the BFD (black flag), unfortunately. But I'm still right in there and I just need to clean up a few things for tomorrow.”

George Gautrey's impressive form continued with three top-10 finishes today. He is seventh overall, 13 points behind Saunders.

Results and standings after day 4 of the Princess Sofia Regatta in Palma de Mallorca, Spain:

49er fleet (99 boats):
1st: Logan Dunning Beck/Oscar Gunn (NZ) 5 (12) 4 7 3 11 1 1 3 - 35 pts
2nd: Lukasz Przybytek/Jacek Piasecki (Pol) 8 3 3 9 3 5 4 5 (18) - 40 pts
3rd: Isaac McHardie/William McKenzie (NZ) 2 5 5 7 8 1 6 7 (10) - 41 pts
34th: Sam Morgan/Pat Morgan (NZ) 7 12 (DNC 34) 14 12 19 3 13 - 80 pts
37th: Scott McKenzie/Blake McGlashan (NZ) (23) 15 13 22 11 5 7 15 – 88 pts
81st: Campbell Stanton/Will Shapland (NZ) 17 8 26 23 26 26 16 (28) - 142 pts
83rd: Mattias Coutts/Henry Haslett (NZ) 18 19 (30) 26 25 21 21 17 - 147 pts

49er FX (60 boats):
1st: Odile van Aanholt/Annette Duetz (Ned) 11 6 2 3 1 2 9 4 (16) - 38 points
2nd: Martine Soffiatti Grael/Kahena Kunze (Bra) 6 9 5 (12) 2 5 1 8 5 – 41 pts
3rd: Isaura Maenhaut/Anouk Geurts (Bel) 3 8 5 21 1 2 5 (22) 1 - 46 pts
18th: Jo Aleh/Molly Meech (NZ) 5 1 20 19 14 14 16 1 (20) - 90 pts
26th: Alex Maloney/Olivia Hobbs (NZ) 10 (18) 8 15 18 13 4 1 2 - 71 pts
38th: Courtney Reynolds-Smith/Brianna Reynolds-Smith (NZ) 13 6 21 24 20 21 10 (24) 5 - 120 pts

ILCA 6 (107 boats):
1st: Marit Bouwmeester (Ned) 3 1 3 14 5 1 2 (16) - 29 pts
2nd: Maxime Jonker (Ned) 7 6 12 8 10 7 3 (41) - 53 pts
3rd: Chiara Benini Floriani (Ita) 16 3 3 7 3 (22) 15 9 – 56 pts
50th: Olivia Christie (NZ) 32 13 18 25 12 51 (53) 44 - 195 pts

ILCA 7 (184 boats):
1st: Michael Beckett (GBR) 2 2 7 2 (14) 1 1 3 – 18 pts
2nd: Pavlos Kontides (Cyp) 8 2 10 3 3 7 (26) 1 – 34 pts
3rd: Tom Saunders (NZ) 3 5 2 3 6 9 (BFD 63) 8 - 36 pts
7th: George Gautrey (NZ) (25) 1 2 12 9 10 5 10 - 49 pts
85th: Caleb Armit (NZ) 39 20 31 41 24 (45) 20 6 - 181 pts
101st: Luke Cashmore (NZ) 19 27 18 47 27 25 (49) 42 - 205 pts
111th: Luke Deegan (NZ) 26 25 37 26 28 44 (47) 46 - 232 pts

Nacra 17 mixed (52 boats):
1st: John Gimson/Anna Burnet (GBR) (6) 1 3 3 2 4 1 5 1 - 20 pts
2nd: Vittorio Bissaro/Maelle Frascari Diotallevi (Ita) 3 3 1 1 1 6 6 4 (9) - 25 pts
3rd: Ruggero Tita/Caterina Banti (Ita) 6 8 3 1 1 (15) 8 6 2 - 35 pts
15th: Micah Wilkinson/Erica Dawson (NZ) 1 13 12 5 9 10 19 (19) 12 - 81 pts

470 mixed (72 boats):
1st: Keiju Okada/ Miho Yoshioka (Jpn) (9) 7 1 3 3 1 7 4 - 26 pts
2nd: Camille Lecointre/Jeremy Mion (Fra) 7 5 5 1 2 13 (17) 1 - 34 pts
3rd: Jordi Xammar Hernandez/Nora Brugman Cabot (Esp) - (12) 1 8 10 4 5 1 9 – 38 pts
54th: Brittany Wornall/Sam Street (NZ) 26 (31) 28 25 19 13 22 23 - 156 pts

iQFOIL men (136 boards):
1st: Sebastian Koerdel (Ger) 1 3 1 3 2 1 (4) 1 (47) 3 - 15 pts
2nd: Nicolas Goyard (Fra) 1 (47) 1 1 1 1 3 1 9 (27) - 18 pts
3rd: Samuel Sills (GBR) (9) 3 2 5 3 3 1 1 (25) 1 – 19 pts
8th: Josh Armit (NZ) 1 1 3 (18) 11 6 9 (21) 15 1 - 47 pts
39th: Thomas Crook (NZ) 27 (47) 19 13 10 24 26 27 1 (31) - 147 pts
63rd: Patrick Haybittle (NZ) – 19 9 (40) 17 30 19 31 43 (45) 33 - 201 pts
80th: Eli Liefting (NZ) 9 27 34 27 (42) 41 30 47 BFD - 215 pts
135th: Antonio Cozzolino (NZ) - 47 DNC 47 DNC (69 DNC) 69 DNC 69 DNC 69 DNC 69 DNC 47 DNC - 417 pts

iQFOIL women (98 boards):
1st: Lola Sorin (Fra) 9 1 (51) (51) 8 3 5 8 2 3 3 – 42 pts
2nd: Emma Wilson (GBR) (9) 3 1 1 4 1 4 1 (5) 31 5 - 51 pts
3rd: Veerle ten Have (NZ) 7 5 (39) 3 10 4 (24) 10 6 1 13 - 59 pts

Formula kite women (53 boards):
1st: Lauriane Nolot (Fra) (5) 1 (28) 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 (3) - 12 pts
2nd: Jessie Kampman (Fra) (28) (9) 1 2 2 3 2 1 (29) 5 1 2 – 19 pts
3rd: Ellie Aldridge (GBR) (3) (4) 1 2 3 2 2 2 3 2 4 (6) - 21 pts
20th: Justina Kitchen (NZ) 12 (15) 7 9 7 6 (15) 7 17 14 17 (22) - 96 pts

Formula kite men (115 boards):
1st: Maximilian Maeder (Sgp) 1 (30) 2 2 1 (3) 1 1 (14) 1 1 1 - 11 pts
2nd: Axel Mazella (Fra) (2) 1 (3) 1 1 1 1 1 (7) 4 5 2 – 17 pts
3rd: Connor Bainbridge (GBR) 1 (2) (30) 1 1 2 2 2 3 2 (12) 4 – 18 pts
74th: Lochy Naismith (NZ) 11 (23) (30) 14 16 14 13 18 (30) 21 23 17 - 147 pts

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