GILES Scott extended his lead at the top of the Finn fleet in Palma on Good Friday, with six other British crews poised in medal positions heading in to the final day of the Princess Sofia Trophy tomorrow.

Portland's Megan Pascoe and Helena Lucas are tied at the top of the Paralympic 2.4mR class leaderboard, where two single-points fleet races will conclude their regatta today, with the Olympic classes taking on their double-points medal races to determine the podium spots across Palma Bay.

The 470 duo of Luke Patience and Elliot Willis, Nacra 17 pairing John Gimson-Hannah Diamond and Alison Young in the Laser Radial are in silver medal position going in to the final day, with Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark improving to third overall in the 470 women’s event.

A change of conditions saw a shake-up across the fleets on today's penultimate day of the regatta, which is the first stage of the EUROSAF Champions Sailing Cup and a qualifier for the ISAF Sailing World Cup Hyeres taking place later this month.

Classic light Palma sea breeze conditions returned across the bay, providing a tricky test for many sailors.

Scott, sailing team-mate Pete McCoy’s Finn after seriously damaging his own earlier in the week, struggled with upwind speed in his borrowed boat in the first race of the day where he finished a frustrated 20th.

After effecting a few setting changes before the second race, Scott’s pace improved with him ending his day with a ninth.

The fact that New Zealander Josh Junior, the British sailor’s nearest rival heading into Friday, had a day to forget with 45,50 on the board eased the pressure on the Portland-based Scott a little, and he goes into the medal race with an 11 point cushion over Croatia’s Ivan Kjlakovic Gaspic.

“Stressful is what it was!” exclaimed Scott when asked about his day. “I was definitely struggling for upwind pace but managed sort that out a bit in between races.”
“If you’d offered me an 11-point lead going in to the medal race when I had the crash with my boat on Tuesday, then I would have taken it for sure,” concluded the World and European champion.
It’s an expectedly tight battle between the British Sailing Team’s Pascoe and Lucas at the top of the 2.4mR table with the sailors on 10 points each with two races to go.

But they were both upstaged by their Podium Potential squad teammate Will Street who stole the show in the first race of the day on Friday. He led from start to finish to take his first race win at a major international event, and is poised in fourth place overall.

John Gimson and Hannah Diamond, racing in just their second major event together in the Nacra 17, have eyes on a podium finish tomorrow.

The duo are poised in silver medal position, 15 points ahead of the third placed Dutch crew and with gold already assured for France’s Billy Besson-Marie Riou.

In the 470 men’s event, Patience and Willis were left ruing a false start penalty from their second race of the day, which now sees them heading into the medal race in silver medal position, 11 points behind Argentina’s Olympic bronze medallists Lucas Calabrese and Juan de la Fuente and 18 points ahead of the Spanish duo.

“It’s a bit gutting really because we were in control of the points and in control of the regatta until that,” said a frustrated Patience, who is based on Portland.
“But it’s the nature of the sport – we’re looking to push everything all the time, and we just got it slightly wrong this time.”

“We’ve just got to go in tomorrow as the opportunists that we are, guns a-blazing, ignite the afterburners and get the girl lit and going. Hopefully we might see the Argentinians have a slightly hard time of it and maybe we’ll be in a position to put some damage on. But it’s a big ask for points and we can only do so much.

“I’m looking forward to the scrap, I know Elliot is too,” Patience continued. “It’s just a different perspective now. We’ll go from maybe looking back and a defensive medal race to all-out attack. So we’ll see where we get to – bring it on!”

Young sits in second place in the Laser Radial event behind Belgium’s Evi Van Acker, who’s sailed an indomitable final series to win the regatta with a day to spare. The Bewdley Olympian has a 16 point cushion ahead of overall third, so will go all out to protect her blue jersey in Saturday’s medal race.

In the 470 women’s event, Mills and Clark advanced in to the medal positions on this penultimate day thanks to a race win and a fifth, with Sophie Weguelin and Eilidh McIntyre going into the final day in fifth place.

Great Britain will also be represented in the 49er, 49erFX and RS:X Men’s and Women’s medal races through Dave Evans and Ed Powys, Charlotte Dobson and Sophie Ainsworth, Tom Squires and Izzy Hamilton.