Ireland's predicted breakthrough into the top 10 of Europe's Laser elite was made by Jon Lasenby in Breitenbrun, Austria, yesterday but only after he watched the whole fleet sail by him in the penultimate race of one of the world's toughest classes.

At home on Dublin Bay, Mustang Sally underlined her season's successes - including last weekend's Stentor CHS Challenge - with another overall win on Saturday in class zero of the Royal Alfred Carlsberg-sponsored Superleague.

Yesterday's second last race of the Laser European championships was Lasenby's worst result of the 12-race series with the sole Irish contender having taken a tack too far left on the opening beat that reduced him to 55th position at the first mark. Finding there was no way back, Lasenby was forced to use up a valuable discard and spent the rest of the race cruising round the course trying to get a feel for the breeze and to save some energy for the last crucial race yesterday afternoon.

After a good start, he found himself blanketed by other competitors once the breeze shifted left and he struggled to find essential clear air. Fighting back up the second half of the first beat he rounded 16th, but then lost five or six places on the first run due to poor route finding. By the start of the second beat he was back in the mid-twenties, and was passed by a British rival, which he admits was most likely the spur he needed that, quite remarkably, pulled him back into the teens before the end of the second beat.

A gust at the top of the run enabled him to make a beeline for the downwind gate, and this saw him past a couple of key contenders to move him up to 13th, a position he held to the finish. The last race dividend gave him ninth overall after a points tie with Germany's Klaus Lhame for eighth.

The regatta was won by Ben Ainslie, from Sweden's Karl Sunneson, with the host nation's Andreas Geritzer third.