Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell came out flying in the Men's 470 to take the lead as the fleet commenced sailing on the Nothe Course.
The Brits finished second in Race 1 behind Austria's Mattias Schmid and Florian Reichstaedter who had an amazing start to lead by 11 seconds at the first mark. They continued to open the gap throughout the race and 23 seconds separated the Austrians and the Brits at the end of the opening race.
In the second race Patience and Bithell were dominant from the off and blew the field away. Bithell said,
"The second race was a completely different race, back to normal if you like out in the middle of the bay with a big cross swell, longer courses and a bit more what we're used to. Again a good solid start out of the middle of the line and myself and Luke are very quick in those conditions. And if we're being completely honest we kind of made it easy from there. We knew which way we wanted to go and the rest was history."
The Austrians backed up their Race 1 bullet with a fourth place to end the day second overall on five points. Schmid said,
"The first race was pretty awesome so we're really happy about this day. There's still another eight races to go and then the Medal Race, it's a long way."
Pre-race favourites Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS) had an off day by their standards and a third and a ninth sees them fifth overall. A downbeat Page said,
"We're disappointed with the errors we made. Our speed was good and there is no reason why we can't win. We were a little disappointed coming in today as we made silly mistakes - but we were fast."
Third overall is Sweden's Anton Dahlberg and Sebastian Östling closely trailed by Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders (NZL) in third.
The Men's 470 fleet resume racing tomorrow at 12:10 local time on the Weymouth Bay West Course.
Top Five
1. Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell (GBR) - 3pts
2. Matthias Schmid and Florian Reichstaedter (AUT) - 5pts
3. Anton Dahlberg and Sebastian Ostling (SWE) - 10pts
4. Paul Snow-Hansen and Jason Saunders (NZL) - 11pts
5. Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page (AUS) - 12pts
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