British sailors lead their catagories in Palma

Britain's Beijing gold medal-winning sailors Ben Ainslie, Paul Goodison and Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson lead their respective classes at the halfway stage of the ISAF Sailing World Cup series event in Palma.

It was a day of two halves in Palma Bay on the third day of the Princess Sofia Trophy, with a long wait for racing to resume as the late morning 14 knot wind conditions rapidly diminished and the local sea breeze attempted to build.

Nick Dempsey is keeping the pressure on in the RS:X men's windsurfing fleet - he sits second overall after posting a 3,5 on Wednesday, while Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell are the leading British boat in the 470 men's event. They slipped to third overall, but are just two points adrift from the overall leaders, Australian World Champions Mathew Belcher and Malcolm Page. Nick Rogers-Chris Grube are eighth and Nic Asher-Elliot Willis are 10th.

In the women's 470 fleet, Skandia Team GBR has three boats inside the top ten at the halfway stage. Penny Clark and Katrina Hughes are in overall fourth, development squad duo Sophie Weguelin and Sophie Ainsworth are sixth and Hannah Mills and Saskia Clark are currently eighth in their debut World Cup event since teaming up in February.

A first-ever Korean team has confirmed that it will enter for the America's Cup in 2013, the second from the Far East, joining China.

The Azzurra sailing team has joined with the Argentinian-based Matador team for the Audi MedCup series in the TP52 class, bringing the expected total to eight. Britain's Tony Buckingham is to campaign in the Soto 40 class.