Four of Britain's six world championship crews in action on Wednesday stayed the right side of the success barrier, but there was heartbreak for two more as the repechages ended their hopes.
The run of bad luck for Sam Townsend, Marcus Bateman and Brendan Crean continued as a recurrent back injury for their crewmate Charles Cousins forced the quad to withdraw completely from the competition.
It is a big blow to a crew which ended the World Cup season with high hopes of reaching the top six in the world, and which has set its sights on Britain's first Olympic quads medal in 2012.
The lightweight men's four is relatively inexperienced, only bowman Chris Bartley having raced at a senior championships before.
Nevertheless they were unlucky to lose an intense battle with the USA by under a second, after leading the Americans twice, but unable to hold them off a third time. Third place in their repechage leaves them competing for the C-final at best (places 13-18) in this popular event.
The lower-ranked lightweights in the lesser pairs event, Oliver Mahony and Ross Hunter pulled off the race of the day for British supporters as they stole the last qualifying place in the final from Switzerland. The Britons didn't lead until the last third of the race, but whipped up their speed again and again to hold off the counter-attack, finishing a few feet in front and encouragingly close to race winners Serbia.
The women's eight and quad qualified for the final, but not through perfect races, both more sluggish off the start than they can afford to be in Sunday's medal race.
The women's lightweight quad only had the option of an 'exhibition' race for lanes, but made the most of it, underlining their status as favourites with a comfortable win.
The semi-finals begin on Thursday, with ten more crews bidding over two days to join the eight already in medal finals.
Andy Triggs Hodge and Peter Reed have avoided meeting their New Zealand nemeses in the pairs semi-final, but the women's pair and men's quad have tougher draws, and sculler Alan Campbell races Olympic champion Olaf Tufte. Both will qualify easily, but a win for Campbell, especially if he doesn't have to exert himself too much, would be a good sign of progress.
Results
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS (Poznan, Poland)
Gp B repechages
Men
Quad (B Crean, M Bateman, C Cousins, S Townsend) withdrawn due to injury.
Lightweight pairs (1st 2 to final) Rep 1 1. S Africa 6-38.21. Rep 2 1. Serbia 6-37.65; 2 .GB (R Hunter, O Mahony) 6-38.25.
Lightweight fours (1st 2 to semi, rest to C-final) Rep 1 1. France 6-00.83; 3 GB (C Bartley, C Boddy, S Feeney, B Hewitt) 6-03.67.
Women
Quads repechage (1st 4 to final) 1. Germany 6-22.22; 2. GB (R Bradbury, B Rodford, S Cowburn, K Greves) 6-28.59.
Eights repechage (1st 4 to final) 1. Germany 6-09.49; 3. GB (J Cook, M Wilson, M Vezie, T Stiller, J Eddie, A Knowles, N Page, L Maguire, cox C O’Connor) 6-12.04.
Lightweight quads race for lanes 1. GB (S Cullen, L Greenhalgh, A Dennis, J Hall) 6-35.94
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