In the men’s 49er World Championships Britain’s new pairing of Dylan Fletcher and Stu Bithell, recently established as European champions, will carry a four-point lead into the Gold Fleet action tomorrow morning after taking all three races on the Alpha course.

Due to the fleet splits for the Olympic skiffs, the New Zealand pair have not yet faced Grael and Kunze at these Worlds, but all three medallists will be on their mettle for the 20-boat Gold fleet that gets underway tomorrow morning.

"We’ve trained with the Brazilians quite a lot over the past four years and with Katja and Jena as well, and whenever we’ve been sailing together with them, we’re always pushing each other to the edge," said Meech.

Hansen agreed, adding: "We’re fast in part because they’ve helped to make us fast, and they’re fast because we’ve helped them too."

Meech claimed was surprised at how she and her partner had managed to score an outstanding series of 1,2,1,1 performances in 15-20 knots of Portuguese Trades and combined seas of two metres.

"We’ve always liked windier conditions, but still we were surprised with our performance in such a tough fleet without the best starts," said Meech, who runs the front of the boat while Maloney helms at the back.

"We were aiming for good, consistent results to finish out the qualification rounds, but Alex and I were really in sync with each other and sometimes that can be the most important thing."

Spain's past world champions and Rio 2016 Olympians Tamara Echegoyan and Berta Betanzos suffered in the big breeze, capsizing several times, but they held on to 13th place, making the Gold Fleet cut-off of 20.

As the women’s fleets returned to the Club de Vela Atlantico, the breeze picked up yet another notch, settling in at a brisk 20 knots from due North.

Behind the Fletcher and Bithell, the young Spanish pairing of Diego Botin and Iago Lopez managed a 2,3,5 score to move into second place overall - their best ever current position at a Worlds.

For Botin the position is good but he knows it does not mean much, especially with two boats tied with them on points.

"Everything will be decided tomorrow and Saturday, we’re basically starting over now," he said.

Germany have the weight of numbers in the Gold Fleet stages as two youth and two veteran teams advanced at the end of the day - double the number of any other nation.