Kiwi sailors Peter Burling and Blair Tuke continued their stretch of supremacy in the 49er class, winning a second straight world championship overnight.
The pair won the medal race in Santander, Spain, finishing 46 points ahead of their nearest rivals from Denmark.
Adding yet another race win in today's medal race the Kiwi duo amassed six wins across the 13 race series only finishing outside the top six in race 11 which was interrupted for them in an accidental collision.
"We wanted to come out and put on a good show today and give the fans back home something to cheer about as well, and we came out firing and sailed a really good race. We really enjoyed that last one," Burling said after the medal race.
The victory prolongs an impressive unbeaten run in the class, a streak that began after claiming silver at the 2012 London Olympics. Since that result, Burling and Tuke have won eight major regattas including two world titles.
The first of those, in Marseille last year, was something of a breakthrough effort for the Kiwi crew, after both the 2011 and 2012 world championships produced second-place efforts behind Australian pair Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen.
This year it was the Australians left fighting with the Danish crew for silver, having been unable to make a dent in the young Kiwis' dominance. They eventually had to settle for bronze after finishing behind Jonas Warrer in the Anders Thomsen medal race.
New Zealand's Marcus Hansen and Josh Porebski finished the series in 16th place after placing 17th in today's race and outside the top ten medal race cut off. Logan Dunning-Beck and Jack Simpson ended in 25th.
Burling, 23, and Tuke, 25, are establishing themselves as gold medal favourites for the 2016 Olympics, although Rio is hardly their only priority.
Both men were signed by Team New Zealand in January and Burling, who was the youngest 49er sailor at the London Games, has long been tipped to succeed Dean Barker at the helm of the black boat.
Burling shared the skipper duties with Barker at May's Extreme Sailing Series in China but, as their results this year in the 49er have shown, Burling and Tuke are clearly unaffected by the dual roles.
Unfortunately for the Kiwi team, the pair's world title will be the solitary gold New Zealand take from the regatta after Jo Aleh and Polly Powrie fell short in their bid to defend their 470 title.
Heading into the medal race in second, the Olympic gold medallists needed to finish higher than first-placed Austrians Lara Vadlau and Jolanta Ogar if they wished to clinch another title, but they slumped to sixth. "It was a tough day for us," a disappointed Aleh said. "We had a chance at the start of the race but didn't capitalise on it."
The silver was a rare result for a pair who have already won gold at three world cup regattas and at last month's Olympic test event in Rio.
Elsewhere, New Zealand finished fifth and sixth in the Finn class demonstrating a return to form in the men's heavy-weight dinghy event and a healthy rivalry between this nation's top two in the class.
Josh Junior sailed a brilliant medal race today crossing in second which saw him end the regatta in fifth overall after lying eighth going into today. Andrew Murdoch came home in sixth.
Gemma Jones and Jason Saunders were fourth in their medal race earning themselves a top five finish to the Nacra 17 World Championship.
New Zealand joined Britain and France as the only nations to qualify boats for all ten classes for the Rio Olympics.
- Cameron McMillan of the New Zealand Herald
