Bittersweet silver for Aust Nacra crew

It's a "bittersweet" silver medal for sailing cousins Jason Waterhouse and Lisa Darmanin but they know they gave everything they had trying to win gold.

The Australian Nacra 17 crew were second in the medal race, to finish second overall, one point behind Argentina.

"It's a little bit bittersweet, not going to lie, we wanted that gold, but we sailed an incredible medal race, I don't think we could have done much more out there," Darmanin told reporters on Tuesday.

The pair were fourth going into the double-points medal race and came home strongly to secure silver.

"That's probably the best medal race I've sailed in the last four years, we gave ourselves every opportunity," Waterhouse said.

A "shocker" of a final preliminary race on Sunday knocked the Australians from first to fourth, making it an uphill battle for them to claim the gold they wanted.

Argentina's Santiago Lange and Cecilia Seroli overcame a bad start to finish sixth in the medal race, just enough to win the gold medal.

"That guy is a living legend in our sport, and he deserves it," Waterhouse said.

Austria's Thomas Zajac and Tanya Frank finished third, equal on points with the Australians.

Waterhouse and Darmanin join the ranks of other Australian multi-hull silver medallists, with Aussies picking up three silver and two bronze in the discontinued Tornado catamaran Olympic class.