Juliette Haigh and Rebecca Scown stamped their class over the field in their event, leading from start to finish.
Using a stroke rate of 36 to establish a healthy lead before upping it to 37 in the final 500m, the pair clocked seven minutes 15.64 seconds to finish just under six seconds ahead of Romania's Adelina Cojarcariu and Nicoleta Albu.
A hard-charging Chinese pair of Tong Li and Meng Li grabbed third when they produced a 45-stroke rate burst in the final quarter of the race.
Eric Murray and Hamish Bond doused an anticipated close race with leading British pair Peter Reed and Andrew Triggs Hodge with a quick start out of the blocks.
The British pair stayed close and then upped their stroke rate to 44 in the final quarter but Murray and Bond easily covered the charge to win in 6min 30.05sec to the Britons' 6:30.84sec. Third were Serbia's Marko Madjanovic and Nikola Stojic.
In the B-finals, New Zealand recorded wins through Emma Twigg in the women's single sculls and in the men's double sculls through Nathan Cohen and Joseph Sullivan.
Twigg led most of the way to comfortably beat Sweden's Frida Svenson and Lithuania's Donato Vistartaite into second and third respectively.
Cohen and Sullivan produced a withering finish, battling back from third at the 1500m to early leaders Poland and Czech Republic 1.
In the men's fours, Tyson Williams, Ian Seymour, Chris Harris and Ben Hammond finished second in their B final, won by Germany 1 with Serbia third.
The men's quad of Matthew Trott, Nathan Twaddle, Paul Gerritsen and John Storey were third behind the United states and Belgium in their B final.
New Zealand were to race the A finals of men's fours, the men's lightweight doubles and the women's quads later tonight.
