After nine months in 65ft Volvo Ocean Race boats racing each other around the world, Martine Grael (Brasil), Jena Mai Hansen (Denmark) and Tamara Echegoyen Dominguez (Spain) have lost 50 foot in the last month but were back on more familiar territory on Saturday.

The 49erFX fleet had their first day of competition in the Hempel Sailing World Championships Aarhus 2018 and the three circumnavigators were back in crews of two on their Olympic class 15ft skiffs. 

The return of the prevailing tricky Aarhus offshore westerlies were testing but the roar from the promenade as home favourites Hansen and Katja Salskov-Iverson returned after winning two of their three races to top the leaderboard told the story.