SAIL FOR GOLD REGATTA:AS NEAR-PERFECT racing conditions continued at Weymouth yesterday, Peter O'Leary extended his lead in the Star keelboat class after a fourth and a fifth place in the two-race Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta schedul.

Along with German crewman Frithjof Kleen, who is substituting for David Burrows, the pair have today’s final to sail before tomorrow’s medal race, open only to the top-10 finishers in each class.

O’Leary and Kleen have a 10-point lead in the leading group that includes British world champion Iain Percy, who is gaining ground after equipment problems earlier in the week.

Percy’s training partners and rival contenders for an Irish Star nomination to London 2012 have also been beset by equipment problems this week.

Max Treacy and Anthony Shanks encountered problems two days ago and Percy immediately loaned the pair his spare Star to use this week. With their own rig and settings matching Percy’s identically, the pair resumed racing on Wednesday but were forced out of competition yesterday, reporting the same issue with Percy’s boat.

The problem that has affected the two boats has not yet been publicly identified.

Meanwhile, Ireland Annalise Murphy scored a third place in yesterday’s opening race of the day and followed this with a 13th in the Laser Radial Gold fleet. That dropped her one place to ninth overall but the Dún Laoghaire single-hander remains a prospect for tomorrow’s medal race final day.

Her fleet also enjoyed an earlier finish to the day by mid-afternoon, in strong contrast to Wednesday when the 90-strong class spent eight hours at sea to only get one race, and that in light airs in contrast to the earlier 12-14 knot breeze that shifted constantly but slightly during the day.

In the 49er Skiff class, having achieved their event goal of qualification for the Gold fleet, Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern slipped two places from 15th after the first race of their day.