Britain's Dylan Fletcher and Stu Bithell and Denmark's Jena Hansen and Katia Iversen maintained the dominant positions they had created for themselves over a series of days where fog and fluctuating winds had made life alternately frustrating or highly challenging.

A sudden drop in the wind delayed the morning action for almost three hours, and while the men's 49ers were able to complete their Championship with four more races, the women managed only two before, with the race deadline looming, officials sent the top 10 teams out to the medal-racing course.

There was drama as the Rio 2016 gold, silver and bronze medallists - respectively Martine Grael and Kahena Kunze of Brazil, New Zealand's Alex Malone and Molly Meech, and Hansen and Iversen - again contended strongly for ultimate victory.

In the penultimate race the Danish pair capsized while leading and the Kiwis and Brazilians took advantage to earn first and second place.

But the Rio bronze medallists still had enough of an overall lead to secure the gold in Portuguese waters

"We got a little annoyed but it was not the end of the world, and we knew in the final race we just needed to be close to the Brazilians to take the win," said Hansen.

As things turned out, they passed Grael and Kunze anyway, and as they hoisted their Danish flag over their heads their boat capsized again, with the pair of then popping up quickly on the overturned boat, hugging and laughing.

The Brazilians were second overall ahead of the New Zealanders, who were not able to maintain their coruscating start to the Championships.

Fletcher and Bithell, already European champions, had a smoother path to victory than the Danish women, but there remained a mathematical chance that they could lose right to the end if their training partners James Peters and Flynn Sterritt were to inflict a heavy defeat on them in the last race.

"We knew we were guaranteed a silver going into the last race and the only way James and Finn could beat us was to win it with us getting fourth or worse," said Fletcher.

"We thought we’d done the job and the job was over, but we let them split from us and it was looking bad for a little while with us pretty far back.

"We were a little nervous but it was a long way for them to get into the lead, and that’s how it ended."