The fight is on to get back in podium contention after New Zealand's leading sailors lost valuable ground on their competitors on their most challenging day so far at the French Olympic Week regatta.

They are up for the scrap, says Oscar Gunn.

Leading the 49er competition for the first two days of qualifying, Gunn and Logan Dunning Beck slid four places on the overall leaderboard after battling a much tougher fleet, an unforgiving race course and a dying breeze in Hyères overnight.

The pair's best finish was 10th in the first of four races.

They are 22 points adrift of leading Spanish crew Diego Botin and Florian Trittel, who won back-to-back races to close out day 4 of the event, followed by Dutch world champions Bart Lambriex and Floris van de Werken and Americans Andrew Mollerus and Ian MacDiarmid.

'The first day of gold fleet is always a big moving day and if you can get a good scorecard, it really shakes up the results,” says Gunn.

'Unfortunately for us, it was tough to get off the start line and as the race course didn't have many passing lanes available, we were fighting from the mid-pack to the back from the get-go.”

Gunn and Dunning Beck, who won gold at the season-opening Princess Sofia Regatta in Spain three weeks ago, know they'll have their work cut out with an even lighter breeze between 6kn and 8kn expected for the final four races ahead of the weekend's double-points medal race.

'The points are really close all the way back to 15th and then there's still some places up in front of us that we can get to.

'We're on the same course tomorrow, with the same start time. It's a good chance for us to put down four solid races and start shifting our way back up the leaderboard and try to get ourselves in a good spot for the medal race.”

Teammates Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie hope to do the same after dropping one place to 13th overall despite finishing second to Botin and Trittel in the final race.

'You can definitely tell it's a huge level up in the standard of sailors in the gold fleet - today was all about getting off the start line clean and just trying to stay out of trouble but we struggled to do that in three out of four races and found ourselves fighting for every place we could,” says McKenzie.

'Even though we didn't quite get the results we wanted, we managed to stay composed and got a good start in the last one. There's plenty to work on and we'll keep pushing tomorrow.”

ILCA 7 (Laser) sailors Tom Saunders and George Gautrey also had a day to forget – finishing 32nd and 31st respectively in their second outing after a fifth and 25th in their first.

Saunders dropped one place to seventh overall – 14 points behind third-placed Elliot Hanson of Britain – with Gautrey now 17th.

'We got the worst of a dying breeze on the second lap of the second race, and it was a bit of a missed opportunity after some good work in the first half,” says Saunders.

'It's disappointing but we'll see what tomorrow brings to hopefully get back in contention.”

Micah Wilkinson and Erica Dawson, meanwhile, are heading in the right direction on the leaderboard – jumping four spots to 12th after starting the day with scores of 7 and 8.

With a total of 62 points, they have some catching up to do, however, with John Gimson and Anna Burnet (15 pts), Mateo Majdalani and Eugenia Bosco (37 pts) and Gianlugi Ugolini and Maria Giubilei (39 pts) comfortably at the top of the fleet.

Alex Maloney and Olivia Hobbs improved eight places to 29th overall following a second place in their second race in the silver fleet. Jo Aleh and Molly Meech are 37th, with the Reynolds-Smith twins Courtney and Brianna in 46th.

No racing was possible for Olivia Christie in the ILCA 6 or Justina Kitchen in the women's kitefoil. At the same time, the light breeze also disrupted proceedings in the silver fleet of the 49er competition.

Results and standings after day 4 of the French Olympic Week regatta in Hyères:

49er (72 boats)
1st: Diego Botin/ Florian Trittel (Spa) 1 1 1 5 4 1 2 (12) 1 1 - 26 points
2nd: Bart Lambriex/Floris van de Werken (Ned) 1 2 1 9 (11) 8 5 2 5 - 33 pts
3rd: Andrew Mollerus/Ian MacDiarmid (US) 3 1 3 6 8 9 3 (13) 8 - 41 pts
5th: Logan Dunning Beck/Oscar Gunn (NZ) 2 1 1 11 1 10 (19) 12 17 - 55 pts
14th: Isaac McHardie/Will McKenzie (NZ) 5 15 9 1 5 11 (20) 16 2 - 64 pts
48th: Campbell Stanton/Will Shapland (NZ) 19 (DNC25) DNC25 3 3 22 18 - 90 pts
50th: Scott McKenzie/Blake McGlashan (NZ) 14 15 (DNC25) 16 17 10 - 72 pts
56th: Sam Morgan/Pat Morgan (NZ) 17 (DNF25) DNC25 22 3 13 - 80 pts

49er FX (50 boats)
1st: Odile van Aanholt/Annette Duetz (Ned) 2 2 (9) 2 2 7 3 3 4 - 25 pts
2nd: Jana Germani/Giorgia Bertuzzi (Ita) 1 1 14 3 3 1 2 (17) 16 - 41 pts
3rd: Johanne Schmidt/Andrea Schmidt (Den) 7 6 1 14 13 5 (16) 4 3 - 53pts
29th: Alex Maloney/Olivia Hobbs (NZ) 11 10 18 16 (23) 11 2 9 - 77 pts
37th: Jo Aleh/Molly Meech (NZ) 13 14 13 18 11 17 (24) 10 - 96 pts
46th: Courtney Reynolds-Smith/Brianna Reynolds-Smith (NZ) 22 (DNC26) 20 24 16 22 4 16 - 124 pts

ILCA 7 (155 boats)
1st: Pavlos Kontides (Cyp) (16) 4 4 2 3 6 1 1 - 21 pts
2nd: Michael Beckett (GBR) 3 3 5 3 1 4 (11) 3 -22 pts
3rd: Elliot Hanson (GBR) 2 1 1 1 (18) 8 6 4 - 23 pts
7th: Tom Saunders (NZ) 5 1 7 3 15 1 5 (32) - 37 pts
17th: George Gautrey (NZ) 5 6 4 7 6 21 25 (31) - 74 pts
78th: Luke Cashmore (NZ) 30 14 16 25 34 (44) - 119 pts
108th: Luke Deegan (NZ) 21 27 37 29 38 (44) - 152 pts
117th: Caleb Armit (NZ) 46 31 19 34 35 (48) - 165 pts

ILCA 6 (94 boats)
1st: Sarah Douglas (Can) 1 2 (9) 2 8 4 8 - 25 pts
2nd: Casey Imeneo (Aus) 8 5 6 1 3 (38) 6 - 29 pts
3rd: Maud Jayet (Sui) 8 1 3 3 7 10 (32) - 32 pts
62nd: Olivia Christie (NZ) 22 18 23 (34) 33 33 - 129 pts

Nacra 17 mixed (46 boats)
1st: John Gimson/Anna Burnet (GBR) 3 3 1 5 (7) 1 1 1 - 15 pts
2nd: Mateo Majdalani/Eugenia Bosco (Arg) 2 1 11 11 5 3 4 (12) - 37 pts
3rd: Gianlugi Ugolini/Maria Giubilei (Ita) 7 5 2 (20) 1 15 5 4 - 39 pts
12th: Micah Wilkinson/Erica Dawson (NZ) 6 15 14 1 11 7 8 (17) - 62 pts

470 mixed (64 boats)
1st: Jordi Xammar/Nora Brugman (Spa) 1 1 (12) 3 2 4 2 6 - 19 pts
2nd: Lara Vadlau/Lukas Mahr (Aut) 5 3 2 9 6 9 (10) 2 - 36 pts
3rd: Beatriz Gago/Rodolfo Pires (Por) 8 6 3 5 1 3 (29) 10 - 36 pts
56th: Brittany Wornall/Sam Street (NZ) 18 (DNC33) 30 19 17 26 25 21 - 156 pts

Kitefoil women (50 boards)
1st: Lauriane Nolot (Fra) (3) 1 (4) 2 1 1 1 2 1 2 - 11 pts
2nd: Jessie Kampman (Fra) 1 1 2 2 (9) 2 2 1 2 (4) - 13 pts
3rd: Daniela Moroz (USA) 1 2 1 1 (DNC26) 4 3 (11) 9 1 - 22 pts
27th: Justina Kitchen (NZ) (15) 12 12 11 - 35 pts