Yachting: Ashley shows his class

Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Susannah Pyatt in action during the Sailing World Championships. Photo / Getty Images

Tom Ashley knows what it takes to win big regattas and he is well poised in the early stages of the ISAF sailing world championships in Perth.

The Olympic champion was third and second in his races yesterday to move up to fourth place in the overall standings.

He was racing on the centre course of Bathers Bay, an area that is developing a reputation of being the most difficult race course partly due to the shifty conditions. This often suits Ashley, who won in the tricky conditions off Qingdao at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Ashley is facing a serious challenge from JP Tobin for New Zealand's RS:X boardsailing berth at the London Olympics, but a strong showing in Perth will help to convince the selectors to plump for him again.

Tobin has been more impressive in recent times (he won Sail Melbourne, was second at Sail for Gold and fourth at the pre-Olympics regatta) but Ashley has performed on the highest stage and the selectors are likely to give him every chance to present a compelling case.

Today will be the final day of sailing in the relatively even yellow, blue and red qualifying pools and from tomorrow they will be split into gold, silver and bronze fleets based on results. Ashley and Tobin, who also had a good day after a sixth and 10th in his racing to sit 12th overall, should comfortably qualify for the gold fleet.

The men's Laser should also be well represented with all five of New Zealand's elite Laser sailors in the top 28 of 147 competitors. Andrew Murdoch was the best placed of the Kiwi contingent in eighth overall after a seventh and fourth yesterday even though he received a penalty in the second race for excessive pumping.

"I got a yellow flag during the start of the second race, and that was my best race so far in the regatta'' Murdoch said. "Sailing through the fleet like that was a bit of a confidence builder.''

Mike Bullot (12th), Andrew Maloney (20th), Sam Meech (21st) and Josh Junior (28th) are all well placed but Murdoch has the inside running for the one Olympic berth after a good year in 2011.

Peter Burling and Blair Tuke, who were joint leaders after the first day, slipped to fourth overall after three races in the 49er skiff class yesterday. They finished 16th in the first race of the day and then registered two sixth-placed finishes.

The women's 470 crew of Jo Aleh and Olivia Powrie also slipped down the field to sit 10th overall but are in good shape.

The competition is now over for the women's match racing crew of Stephanie Hazard, Jenna Hansen and Susannah Pyatt, who finished with a ninth place overall to qualify the boat for London. They narrowly missed out on a top-eight finish on a tie-break, which would have seen them progress through to the quarter-finals, but it still represents a good return for a crew who have been together less than a year.

"It was a very very long event,'' Pyatt said. "All the teams were so even, each day was important.

"It was mixed emotions when we got off the water. We were stoked to have just qualified the nation convincingly, but it was nerve-wracking waiting for the other results to come in to see if we made the next round.''

It means New Zealand have so far qualified five boats from five classes for London after the Laser Radial, men's 470, Finn and women's RS:X won through last week.