Kiwi pair in contention at 470 world champs

Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox are sixth after two days at the 470 world championships in Greece. Photo: Nikos Alevromytis / World Sailing.

Consistency is critical at any regatta and so far Paul Snow-Hansen and Dan Willcox have posted five good scores at the 470 world championships in Greece that has left them in a good position.

The pair were ninth and third in their two races overnight (NZ time) to move up two places to sixth in the overall standings. They are nine points off a podium position but the top nine crews are all within 16 points of each other.

Snow-Hansen and Willcox, who won silver at last year's world championships, easily qualified for the gold fleet - the top 36 boats - and will now contest another six races before Saturday night's top-10 medal race.

"We had a solid day," Snow-Hansen said. "We had a nine and a three, so two keepers.

"We have six races ahead of us in the gold fleet and everything to play for. We're currently sitting sixth overall and the points are tight so every race is going to be important. We are pretty excited to get out there racing tomorrow and get back into it."

Sweden's Anton Dahlberg and Fredrik Bergstrom continue to set a hot pace, having won three races and finished second in the other two, and they hold a five-point lead over Australia's Mathew Belcher and Will Ryan and David Bargehr and Lukas Mähr from Austria.

Like the Kiwi pair, this is Dahlberg and Bergstrom's first major regatta since last year's Rio Olympics and they revelled in the conditions of 8-10 knots on the waters of the Thermaikos Gulf.

"I did not expect this, but it is a qualification for the 2018 Aarhus Worlds and we have been at the top of our performance at starts which has made everything a lot simpler," Bergstrom said. "It feels like we have good speed, not better than other people, and we are making some of the biggest decisions quite well in these first five races."

Hannah Mills and Eilidh McIntyre continue to lead the women's fleet but couldn't replicate their perfect scores from yesterday when they had three races wins, posting a fifth and a third, and they have a slim two-point lead over Slovenia's Tina Mrak and Veronika Macarol.

Two more races are scheduled tonight (NZ time).