COMMENT FROM RACE WINNER NICK MAXWELL AND ENGLAND'S JOE WOODS ON TODAY'S RACING IN KEY WEST

After racing today Fiona Brown spoke with Nick Maxwell and Joe Woods about the race and their overall impressions of the week.

FB - Nick, you had a great race today, what was your secret?

NM - It was very light, very flukey, we had the rig set very light which worked out just in our favour. We had a port start so we were able to stay off to the left hand side and find some good breeze over there along with some slight favourable current. That along with having our rig set loose worked out really nicely for us and we rounded the first mark second.
We were second round the leeward mark and then we got Stuart Rix right at the top of the second beat and just managed to sneak inside him at the mark. We got a little bit lucky but the Gods were in our favour. That last run was very very tough as it turned into a tight reach into the finish. The two boats behind us took their shuts down but we were able to hold onto ours so we ended up having a nice comfortable lead of probably ten boat lengths which worked out very nicely. The Quantum Sails were good, Jimmy Gluck from Quantum was on board and was super. Overall we're having a great week. We didn't do so well for the first couple of days because we didn't have the sails tuned so well but today everything was working well and we had a great time.

FB - Joe, you've been to Key West several times before but your performance this year shows a considerable improvement and you're now lying in 20th overall. What have you done to help you improve your results?

JW - We've been putting in a lot more practise since we were last here. Also we've got Rob Smith on the boat now with us now which is really helping me. (Ed's note - Rob Smith is a three time Melges 24 UK Champion and was second overall in the 2002 World Ranking.)

FB - You were fourth at the first mark but ended up thirteenth, where did it all go wrong?

JW - The last big shift caught us as we were going round the top mark. We didn't quite catch were the finish was so we ended up a bit low and lost a few boats there. We'd rounded the final mark seventh but we ended up around thirteenth which I'm still really happy with.

FB - What brings you back to Key West year after year?

JW - It's a fantastic week, it's a great place to come and do some sailing and it's so relaxed which is a nice change from some of the events we do!

Our thanks to Joe and Nick for taking the time to talk to us after racing today.

For full results visit www.premiere-racing.com.