The French pair put on an outstanding performance as light winds and a strong current tested the athletes in the Spanish city of Santander to record a 2-1 scorecard and lead the standings in the 30 nation fleet, which features a number of Olympic medallists and world champions, including their world number one compatriots Camille Lecointre and Hélène Defrance, who are four places behind.

Brazilian Beijing 2008 Olympic bronze medallist Fernanda Oliveira and crew Ana Luiza Barbachan are second in the overall results, while China's Huimen Feng and Lizhu Huang are third.

Olympic champions and defending world champions Polly Powrie and Jo Aleh of New Zealand are further behind in eighth overall.

Nicholas Heiner is the new overall leader in the Laser fleet ©Getty Images


The Laser fleet race saw nine sailors disqualified for breaking the start line early, including defending world champion Robert Scheidt of Brazil, Croatia's European champion Tonči Stipanović and Portuguese 2003 world champion Gustavo Lima.

It was a good day, however, for new overall leader Nicholas Heiner of The Netherlands who took a solid third.

"I had a comfortable lead in the first beat and good downwind then somehow on the second beat, I just got outside the current line like about 5 metres outside and the guys below me just drove through my dirty wind," he said.

"It is a different kind of sailing but I will sleep well tonight as always."

American Charlie Buckingham is second overall after finishing behind Maloney and Australia's Tom Burton maintained his third place.

China's Dongshuang Zhang finished the day atop the Laser Radial leaderboard, with Sweden's Josefin Olsson in second place.

"It was a good race," Olsson said.

"I had a really good start at the pin end and tacked straight away across the fleet and it was good.

"I rounded the first mark just behind Dongshuang and then we were able to control the fleet for the rest of the race."

Behind them, Silvia Zennaro of Italy steadily closed the gap from 10th to finish a close third.

Stuart McNay and Dave Hughes took the opening race win in the blue men's 470 fleet ©Getty Images


In the blue men's 470 fleet it was the United States' Stuart McNay and Dave Hughes who took the opening race win ahead of Croatia's Šime Fantela and Igor Marenić and Greece's Panagiotis Kampouridis and Efstathios Papadopoulos respectively, while Sofian Bouvet and Jeremie Mion of France took the win in the yellow fleet, pursued by compatriots Nicolas Charbonnier and Acielle Nebout-Javal in second and German brothers Julian and Philipp Autenrieth in third.

Charline Picon of France continues to lead the way in the women's RS:X, where the top 10 are all within 10-13 points of each other.

British Olympic bronze medallist Bryony Shaw is in second place, with Pan American Games gold medal winner Patrícia Freitas of Brazil in third.

Meanwhile, the men's RS:X finished with Piotr Myszka of Poland on top at the end of day three, with just five points separating places one to ten.

Great Britain's London 2012 silver medallist and Athens 2004 bronze medallist Nick Dempsey finished in second place after a solid performance, with Greek world bronze medal winner Byron Kokkalanis in third.

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