Star class sailors Peter O'Leary and Stephen Milne opened their Olympic campaign in Qingdao with an excellent sixth place finish in their first race.
Helmsman O'Leary, who hails from Cork, and his Bangor crew-mate Milne coped well with the difficult conditions to finish a minute and 25 seconds behind race winners Sweden.
The Irish duo rounded the first mark in sixth place and after dropping to seventh during the middle part of the race, they rallied to close the gap and outpace Britain's Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson in the closing stretch.
There were long delays to the day's rescheduled sailing programme, as the forecasted north-easterly breeze died away before the start time.
But the wind speed rose from five knots to a steady eight or nine, allowing Tim Goodbody's Finn class to resume racing. The Delgany man finished 15th in race eight, to keep himself 21st overall.
Indeed, with races nine and ten in the Finn Class cancelled due to worsening weather conditions, Goodbody's first Olympics is prematurely over. His overall finish of 21st means he will not compete in the ten-boat medal race.
The 470 class duo of Gerald Owens and Philip Lawton have slipped down the field to 14th overall, after a 21st place finish in race 7.
Meanwhile, Malahide sailor Ciara Peelo secured her best finish of the Olympic regatta to date when claiming seventh spot in race 4 of the Laser Radial class.
With the wind speed varying between 7 and 15 knots, Ireland's flag bearer placed fifth at the first mark and held her ground in seventh over the remaining 36 minutes of the race.
She is now 15th overall and within range to challenge for a place in the ten-boat medal race.
With the discard to come and six races remaining in the opening series, Peelo is currently 15 race points behind the tenth-placed competitor, Britain's Penny Clark.
Men's star race one result:
1 Fredrik Loof/Anders Ekstrom (Sweden) 1 point
2 Marc Pickel/Ingo Borkowski (Germany) 2
3 Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos (Portugal) 3
4 Hamish Pepper/Carl Williams (New Zealand) 4
5 Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Dominik Zycki (Poland) 5
6 Peter O'Leary/Stephen Milne (Ireland) 6
7 Iain Percy/Andrew Simpson (Britain) 7
8 John Dane III/Austin Sperry (United States) 8
9 Flavio Marazzi/Enrico De Maria (Switzerland) 9
10 Robert Scheidt/Bruno Prada (Brazil) 10
