NORTH SAILS GOLD CUP UPDATE
With one more day of racing to go three boats are tied for the lead in the North Sails UK Gold Cup. - From the UK Class - The first Melges 24 North Sails Gold Cup is being hosted by the Royal Torbay Yacht Club and, it is hoped, will become an annual event.
Day 1
The day started well with a good force 3 to 4 west south westerly wind. The Race Officer got the races away in good time and all three races were won by different boats. The first race was won by Sogeti (Benjamin Cohen) from Monaco with local boat Xcellent helmed by Rob Smith second and Euro-voiles (Denis Infante) from France third. It was reverse positions in the second race with Xcellent winning from Sogeti. Euro-Voiles was again third. The third race was won by another local sailor Joe Woods sailing WKD Red, Xcellent second and Sogeti third.
After the first day it looked like a very open competition with a lot of boats set to the change the order of things.
Day 2
It was a sharp contrast to Day 1 with very little wind and rain squalls. The first race of the day started after a short postponement. This race was won by local sailor Adrian Peach in Team Panasonic, with France's Dyneema-Euros (Remy Amaud) second and Xcellent third. After the finish of this race the wind dropped and the Race Officer, John Clapham, decided to send the fleet back into the harbour on an indefinite postponement. The wind filled in at around 1430 hours and the fleet were able to complete the schedule for day 2. Race 5 saw a new winner in Comfortably Numb (Andrew Dellow/Simon Dobson) with Euro-Voiles second and Sogeti third. Euro-Voiles won race 6 with Team Panasonic second and WKD Red third.
After the sixth race the discard kicked in and three boats have the same number of points – Xcellent, Euro-Voiles and Sogeti with WKD Red fourth with 19 points. It looks like a very exciting last day – weather permitting!
After an evening in the Protest Room the overall results changed, Xcellent was disqualified in race 4 and this put him down to third place.