Brothers Jesse and Zander Kirkland made a promising start at the Skandia Sail for Gold Regatta in Weymouth, England yesterday.Provisional results at press time last night showed the local sailors 13th in the 38-boat 49er fleet after the opening three races.To enhance their chances of reaching the Final Series later in the week the Olympic-bound duo needed to begin the regatta on a positive note. And they managed to do just that after posting finishes of fourth, seventh and 18th in the Blue fleet, competing in shifty and light to medium air.“First two races were fun,” said crewman Zander. “We had solid speed and hit some good shifts both upwind and downwind.“On the final race we had a great start holding our lane with the top New Zealand, Spanish and British teams out to the left side. The right was favoured, but we won the left side and so rounded a close fifth.“However, the wind got funny on the downwind and we ended up midfleet by the leeward mark. We then got out of phase with the breeze on the final upwind and ended up losing a few more boats.“So two good ones and bad one to end it, leaves us hungry to sail well tomorrow. Heavy wind is forecasted for the next five days, so it will be a whole name game from here on in. Points are close all around us.The Kirklands managed to put in a solid showing despite skipper Jesse having yet to fully recover from a stomach bug, which have hampered the team’s pre-regatta preparations since arriving in England.“The stomach bug was unfortunate because we were not able to do the amount of pre-event practice we had planned,” Zander said. “But the bigger picture is that we still have a month at the venue and plenty of time to train.”One of the Kirkland’s primary objectives in Weymouth which will host Olympic sailing in July is to reacclimatise to heavy air racing.“With heavy air 49er sailing you need to be quicker with everything, it is like sailing in fast forward,” Zander said. “The breeze will be great practice for us and we look forward to getting back into the swing of heavy air racing.“It takes adjusting to, but it is a lot of fun hauling the mail around when it gets fresh. We are looking for improvement with our boat handling as we get reacquainted in the breeze through the week and hopefully we can put together some good performances at this final World Cup event before the Games.”The Kirklands qualified for the Olympics after placing ninth at last month’s 49er World Championships in Zadar, Croatia.Since then they have secured additional funding to aid their Olympic cause and a new coach in former British 49er sailor Mark Asquith.