Sailing: Early start sinks Kiwi pair

New Zealand's Melinda Henshaw and Jenny Egnot raced into gold medal contention only to drop like an anchor in the women's 470 class at the Sydney Olympic yachting on Monday.

The Cantabrian pair were first across the finish line in the ninth race of their series, but were then disqualified for having crossed the start fractionally early. They did not believe they had erred, but the New Zealand team management watched a video of the start and it supported the line call.

Had their ``win'' stood they would have been lying second overall in the fleet, within easy striking distance of overall leaders Jenny Armstrong and Belinda Stowell representing Australia.

Dunedin-born Armstrong sailed for New Zealand at the Barcelona Olympics, finishing fourth in the Europe class. She shifted across the Tasman after losing the Europe slot for the Atlanta Games to Sharon Ferris.

Armstrong won the 10th and penultimate race of the series to hold an eight-point lead over Germany's Nicola Birkner and Wibke Buelle at the end of the day.

``We couldn't have planned it better - we were right on track,'' Armstrong said.

The New Zealand pair, their confidence dented by the disqualification and unable to find a clear path in the fickle breezes, were a disappointing 16th in Monday's second race. They dropped to 12th overall and out of the medal reckoning, from fifth at the start of the day.

Henshaw said they put everything into the first race and had no idea they were over the line.

Their coach John Clinton told them after they finished they had been caught over the start line. Five minutes later a scoresheet showed they had won, so he told them he'd got it wrong, before the disqualification was eventually confirmed.

``I told my coach where to go, because I was pretty emotional - having been told, yes, we'd won the race and then, no, we hadn't won the race, then yes it was confirmed,'' Henshaw said.

Egnot said they had still been in with a medal chance, as they could make the ninth race their second discard.

``I thought okay, that just means we need to be extra smart now and everything's counting,'' she said.

``And (we had) the second race and it wasn't so hot.''

The New Zealand men's 470 sailors, Simon Cooke and Peter Nicholas, started the day well with a third placing but then a 14th put them ninth overall.

In the Finns, Clifton Webb was leading early in Monday's first race but was yellow-flagged for illegally rocking his boat and after doing a 720-degree turn he finished 15th. He followed that with a 10th placing to be 13th overall.

New Zealand's Star skipper Gavin Brady came ashore with two protests on Monday after his second race, one against Switzerland for a mark-rounding incident and the other when he considered an official boat obstructed him at the windward mark.

His 10th placing in the race, following a fifth earlier this afternoon, made him and crew Jamie Gale ninth overall.

In the 49er skiffs, New Zealand's Daniel Slater and Nathan Handley finished eighth overall after placing 10th in their final race.

World championship bronze medallists Thomas Johanson and Jyrki Jarvi won the gold medal - Finland's first Olympic yachting gold in 20 years - in this high-speed class making its Olympic debut.

The Aucklanders struggled to cope with the shifty conditions, though they showed a marked improvement in the second half of their series grabbing a couple of seconds and one third placing.

``If we'd been scored on the second half we would have been in the top five, but we left our run a bit late,'' Slater said.

``We definitely weren't slow in the light winds, it was more the shifts that affected us. Most of the heavy sailors were back in the field.''

American brothers Jonathan and Charlie McKee won Monday's 49er race to earn the bronze medal, with Britain's Ian Barker and Simon Hiscocks sealing the silver with a third place.

- NZPA