Higgins and Johnston (AUS) win Race 7 of the 2009 505 SAP Worlds

3:40 AM Fri 28 Aug 2009 GMT

'Malcom Higgins (l)and Nick Johnston (AUS) - 2009 SAP 505 World Championships' Lynn Fitzpatrick

Malcom Higgins and Nick Johnston (AUS) are a lot happier at the end of the day today than the were at the end of the second day of racing the 2009 SAP 505 World Championship. Early in today's second race, Race 7 for the regatta, they snapped up the lead, extended and crossed the finish line 47 seconds ahead of second place finishers, Dalton Bergan and Fritz Lanzinger (USA).

The picture has been getting brighter all week for the Australian duo. After breaking their mast in the first race of the series, they rigged up their spare mast, which is a bit softer than the one that they had intended to use throughout the heavy air regatta.

The new stick worked well and in the third race of the series, they were out ahead of everyone, including Mike Martin and Jeff Nelson (USA) and Mike Holt and Carl Smit (USA), for the entire first lap the race. Then spaghetti around their tiller and broken lines conspired to send them swimming near the gybe mark. They salvaged at 23rd out of that race.

Today's races were much lighter than usual. Their strategy for the second race was to start early and go left. "We saw the fog and the light air under Angel Island and wanted to avoid it. We got a good lane and went hard to the left layline and then flopped over," said Johnston.

They rounded the first weather mark in the top handful of boats and by the time they reached the bottom gate, they were in the lead. Their boat held together, they stayed upright and the race worked out better than planned.

With the first place finish, Malcom has narrowed the gap in the standings against his younger brother, Sandy. Clear to point out that he always sails against Sandy, Malcolm and Sandy are competing against each other for familial bragging rights in this regatta.

Two more races remain in the 2009 SAP 505 World Championship. St. Francis Yacht Club will run one race on Friday and the final race is scheduled for Saturday.

Photo of Nick Johnston (l) and Malcom Higgins (r) making their sponsors, Cooper's and Kaenon Polarized, proud by Lynn Fitzpatrick

by Lynn Fitzpatrick