Sailing's off, how about footy?

New Zealand Optiworlds sailing team coach Chris Steele was today hoping his troops would be able to emulate their football dominance on the water.

Two days of team racing in the Napier-hosted world championships was scheduled to start this morning and the Kiwis were to meet the winners of the battle between Great Britain and Bermuda.

Yesterday, an unofficial knockout football tournament was staged among the teams after light winds forced the postponement of two of the three races in the Beacon Cup individual section of the regatta which involves 210 sailors from 48 countries.

"We went undefeated for seven games and played most of the teams twice. We were eventually beaten by Croatia who we had earlier beaten... we were a bit stuffed by then," Steele explained.

"Hopefully that's a good omen for the teams racing segment of the regatta. Or perhaps it's a sign we should ditch sailing and take up football... apart from Leonard our boys didn't have a memorable day on the water today."

Steele was referring to the fact Aucklander Leonard Takahashi-Fry improved his overall placing from sixth to fifth with a seventh placing in yesterday's sixth race.

Waikato's Isaac McHardie retained his 25th placing, Auckland's Markus Somerville dropped from 37th to 43rd, Auckland's William McKenzie improved from 69th to 53rd and Taipa's Nathaniel Deverell improved from 90th to 89th.

"The light winds were a bit tricky today. All of our boys had rough starts and Leonard's seventh placing was the only result worth keeping. It was probably a case of discards for the rest,'' Steele said referring to McHardie's 33rd, Somerville's 48th, McKenzie's 23rd and Deverell's 46th.

"The teams racing provides a good chance to have a rest from the main stuff. It's a good distraction and we'll still try and do well,'' Steele explained.

"Mentally our boys are all in a good state and they have proved they can compete with the best sailors here. At the same time they have learned some rough lessons along the way," he added.

Highlights of yesterday's sixth race included Sweden's Oliver Osterburg, who was 115th after Monday's racing, recording a victory, his teammate Erik Nevhagen, who was 152nd overnight, claiming a third and Malaysia's Mohammad Efiezal Rizal Yusof, who was 140th overnight claiming a fourth.

With a fifth placing, Singapore's Ryan Lo took the lead in the regatta from overnight leader Bart Lambriex of the Netherlands who had a 16th. Lo has a nine-point lead over Lambriex on net scores after one discard. Peru's Javier Arribas is two points behind Lambriex in third. Takahasi-Fry is 19 points behind Lo.

Officials hope to stage the two races postponed from yesterday with the three scheduled for Saturday... weather permitting.

"We need to run a minimum of five races to determine the world champion. We've done six and the plan is to complete all 15 scheduled by the time the regatta ends on Monday," Optiworlds spokeswoman Nathalie van Dort said.