Defending champions Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams took a tumble as the world yachting championships continued in Portugal today.
The New Zealanders had started the defence of their Star title in style at Cascais on Thursday when they shared the lead after two races with a French crew.
However, they slipped to ninth overall after finishing the two races today in seventh and 19th positions.
They were one of a number of New Zealand crews in action today when a breeze of eight to 12 knots greeted sailors.
Laser sailor Andrew Murdoch experienced relative highs and lows, responding to his 23rd placing in the opening race by finishing second in the next to be the best placed New Zealander in the fleet in 29th overall.
Josh Junior, who will represent his country at the youth world championships this year, started impressively with a second placing in the opening race.
He followed that with a 29th placing in the second race to sit 43rd on the leaderboard.
Sara Winther made a good start in the Laser Radials, sitting 10th in a fleet of 107 after posting 14th and third placings.
In the Tornado catamaran, Brett Sellers and Bruce Kendall improved on yesterday's performance to cross the finish in sixth place in their fourth race of the regatta.
That saw them climb to 28th place in the 49 strong fleet.
