Sailing: NZ duo ascend to gold

New Zealand's Olympic silver medallists Peter Burling and Blair Tuke have gone one better at the European Championships after claiming 49er gold in Denmark.

It wasn't all smooth sailing for the duo yesterday with skipper Burling falling from the boat in the opening medal race and crossing the line last.

They responded with a win in the next race, followed by a fifth in the final race to secure the overall victory by four points.

The New Zealand duo edged British sailors Dylan Fletcher and Alain Sign who took silver.

"It's great," said Tuke. "Obviously we won silver at the Olympic last year but it's the first time we've actually won a major international regatta like this with all the top guys here so it's really pleasing for us and especially being the first regatta back for us since the Olympics.

"We came here to just get back in the boat but we've been sailing really well this week so we're pretty happy."

Alex Maloney and Molly Meech also secured a podium finish taking bronze in the 49erFX, with a further two top nine results for New Zealand, including fifth for Natalia Kosinska at the RS:X and ninth for Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski in the 49er fleet.

Burling and Tuke had held the overall lead at the end of day four after being in ninth place going into the day's racing. The pair had appeared to have found their groove with four consistent single-digit races including a race win while many of their rivals in the Olympic skiff class struggled for consistency posting mixed results.

"We sailed pretty well in our first three races, getting top three in all of those, and then the last one we had a pretty bad first beat and the shifts didn't really go our way, and we managed to come back through and finish inside the top 10 so we were really happy with the comeback," Burling said.