Germany’s Luise Wanser and Philipp Autenrieth lead after three races on day one of the 470 Sailing World Championship in Sdot Yam, Israel ©Getty Images

Germany’s Luise Wanser and Philipp Autenrieth lead after three races on day one of the 470 Sailing World Championship in Sdot Yam, Israel, which involve the novel mixed format that is set to feature at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

With the 60-boat fleet split into two qualifying groups it was the Japanese pairing of Keiju Okada and Miho Yoshioka that produced the most consistent racing as they placed first, seventh and fifth.

But they go into day two of an event due to conclude on Saturday (October 29) in fourth place, as the German team made their opening 21st placing their discard and head the early standings with their subsequent first and second placings.

Autenrieth told Sail World that he and Wanser will seek to maintain their best form for tomorrow’s two concluding qualifying phase races.

"It didn't feel like such a good start to the competition," he said.

"For sure the 21st is a score we want to discard, but overall a good day and a nice recovery."

Wanser added: "That was a good wake-up call and put some pressure on us, and I think we responded to that pressure quite well."

On a day of shifting winds, second place overall went to China’s Jianyong Xu and Yahan Tu, who finished first, 18th and third.

Meanwhile, it was a challenging day for some of the favourites.

Sweden's recently established European champions Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Karlsson stand 16th after a tricky opening day of racing at the 470 Sailing World Championship in Israel ©Getty Images
Sweden's recently established European champions Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Karlsson stand 16th after a tricky opening day of racing at the 470 Sailing World Championship in Israel ©Getty Images

Spain’s Olympic bronze medallist Jordi Xammar and his crew Nora Brugman placed second, 13th and tenth to find themselves in 13th place overall, while recently established European champions Anton Dahlberg and Lovisa Karlsson of Sweden sit in 16th place with scores of 12, 13 and two.

"That was a tough day out," shrugged Dahlberg, last year's Olympic silver medallist in Tokyo, where there were men’s and women’s individual races.

"You had to find that small margin, a tiny advantage to be able to tack on the shifts and we were that one boat length behind a lot of the day, which makes life very hard.

"Our starts were not good enough, I think we need to play it a little bit more risky tomorrow."

Marco Gradoni and Alessandra Dubbini of Italy stand third overall with scores of 10th, first and fifth, and Rodrigo Duarte and Ana Luiza Barbachan of Brazil who scored seventh, first and eighth to lie seventh overall.

The local team of Gil Cohen and Noam Homri are eleventh overall with scores of fourth, seventh and ninth.