"We are still really happy with the regatta," Saunders said. "I think we have made some good progress since [the Princess Sofia Regatta in] Palma and [World Cup in] Hyeres and we are pretty excited about the season to come because hopefully we can take some of our gains here into the next regattas and do something good at the worlds in Aarhus."
Jones and Saunders head to Aarhus this week for training with a number of the rest of the NZL Sailing Team before competing at Kiel Week and the Nacra European championships before the world championships.
Max van der Zalm was the next best of the New Zealanders competing in Medemblik, finishing fourth in the under-19 RS:X. Veerle ten Have was 35th in the women's RS:X and Antonio Cozzolino 40th in the men's RS:X. Cozzolino had a much better second half of the regatta, with six top-10 finishes in his last eight races.
Last night's medal race was a new experience for Jones and Saunders, with boundaries in place in theatre-style racing. They revelled in the warm conditions and 10 knots of wind to finish second in the race behind the British pair of John Gimson and Anna Burnet with the Spaniards fourth.
"We knew it was pretty close on points going into the race but that we had probably lost our chance to be on the top of the podium yesterday because in this regatta and fleet it was a pretty big ask to finish out of the top five with the boats that were here," Jones said. "We were trying to have a good race and keep our second place and see if we could get a chance to go for gold.
"It was a pretty hectic race because of the boundaries which I hadn't sailed in before in the Nacra. It was pretty tight so there was a lot of boat handling as opposed to strategy and speed.
"We can definitely take a lot of positives out of the regatta. Even though it wasn't the highest quality fleet, it was still very valuable for us."
The next major regatta on the calendar is the World Cup Series Final in Marseille and features Josh Junior and Andy Maloney in the Finn.
Results and standings after the final day of the Medemblik Regatta in the Netherlands overnight (NZ time):
Nacra 17 (21 boats)
1st: Fernando Echavarri Erasun / Tara Pacheco van Rijnsoever (ESP) 2 1 1 9 2 1 2 2 4 1 (14) 2 8 - 35 points
2nd: Gemma Jones / Jason Saunders (NZL) 1 3 3 2 3 2 5 4 1 4 (22 UFD) 5 4 - 36 pts
3rd: John Gimson / Anna Burnet (GBR) 5 2 2 7 4 3 1 3 3 (22 UFD) 6 1 2 - 39 pts
Boy's under-19 RS:X (21 boards)
1st: Fabien Pianazza (FRA) 1 1 (2) 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 2 2 - 17 pts
2nd: Tom Garandeau (FRA) 2 2 1 5 2 1 1 2 (13) 2 2 3 4 - 27 pts
3rd: Jim van Someren (NED) 9 (10) 6 2 3 7 9 8 4 6 4 1 8 - 67 pts
4th: Max van der Zalm (NZL) 5 6 6 (22 UFD) 7 3 4 3 9 4 9 7 10 - 74 pts
Women's RS:X (47 boards)
1st: Zofia Noceti Klepacka (POL) 3 4 4 6 1 (22) 11 2 6 2 2 6 10 - 57 pts
2nd: Lilian de Geus (NED) 1 (48 RET) 2 23 6 2 4 4 5 15 4 5 2 - 73 pts
3rd: Stefania Elfutina (RUS) 2 2 8 1 (17) 10 12 1 1 8 7 12 14 - 78 pts
35th: Veerle Ten Have (NZL) 23 32 29 (44) 42 37 38 38 27 34 40 33 21 - 394 pts
Men's RS:X (58 boards)
1st: Yoav Cohen (ISR) 1 3 1 2 7 1 (24) 4 2 5 1 3 6 - 36 pts
2nd: Maciej Kluszczynski (POL) 2 2 1 1 1 1 5 3 4 1 (13) 2 16 - 39 pts
3rd: Kieran Holmes-Martin (GBR) 1 5 4 1 2 2 1 1 (9) 4 RDG 3 6 18 - 48 pts
40th: Antonio Cozzolino (NZL) 17 16 23 8 22 23 9 10 8 9 8 8 (30 BFD) 15 - 168 pts
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