The results now coming in from a windy day's racing at Skandia Cowes Week show some tight tussles at the top of the table. The breeze, which reached 23kts at times, veered from south-west to north-west as the day wore on, causing exciting conditions out on the water.
Flying Fifteen Men Behaving Badly, mentioned earlier for their apparently impregnable position in the week's results for the one-design, has been toppled into second place in their class by Hoomaloo, throwing the White group leadership open to a challenge from Hunter 707 Charlie Fish. Skipper Iain May said: "We had a tricky start, but managed to pull a big lead which gave us clean wind and meant we didn't need to worry about the rest of the fleet behind. Normally we prefer light winds, but if today's result moves us up the White group we're not complaining."
Patches has once again topped the IRC Class 0 table, while IRC Class 2 continues to be dominated by the Irish Corby 29 Flying Glove. Both Yes! Murphy & Nye (IRC Class 5) and Sigma 38 The Project have held on to first place in their class results, causing no lessening of the tension at the head of the Black fleet. Adam Gosling, who skippers Yes! Murphy & Nye, explained: "We didn't have the best start - got buried a bit at the first mark, and we had a lot of trouble getting past a Bavaria Match 35. But in the end we came through and the results paid off."
Meanwhile, a seven-second win on corrected time for Bear of Britain in the IRM fleet will do no harm to their chances of walking off with fleet honours.
David Pugh/Yachting World, 5 August 2005
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