#quartertoncup – In the all amateur Corinthian Division of the Quarter Ton Cup in Cowes the defending champion Tiger and her young crew led by George Kenefick from Royal Cork (ably assisted by Mike Budd), leads the fleet with five first places and a black flag. The battle for second is tied between Paul Kelsey's Runaway Bus and Richard and Anna Thomas's Sergeant Pepper, both stalwarts of the Coutts Quarter Ton Cup, who each count eleven points, putting them six points behind Tiger. Eric William's delightful little Love In A Mist, the smallest boat in the fleet is fourth with Dun Laoghaire's Ken Lawless & Sybil McCormack's Supernova fifth. Royal Irish club mate Paul Colton's Cri-Cri is sixth and Lucy Wood and Tara Stone's Rum Bleu seventh.
Whilst the weather may have been overcast on day two of the Coutts Quarter Ton Cup the fleet most definitely was not and the 30 teams enjoyed three more stunning races. It was a day of high drama in every sense with constant parry and thrust on the race course and the black flagging of four of the top ten boats in race six. With the discard not coming into play until a seventh race has been sailed the black flags hit the overall results hard. Those affected were Rickard Melander's Alice II, Rob Gray's Blackfun, George Kenefick's Tiger and Louise Morton's Espada, all of whom are ranked in the top ten.
The Irish teams had another great day with Ian Travers and Eamon Rohan's Per Elisa and Diamund Foley's Anchor Challenge, being helmed this week by Paul Gibbons, both putting in solid results. Per Elisa won race four, stumbled with a fourteenth in race five but came back with a fifth in race sixth to move up from ninth overall to fifth. Anchor Challenge struggled in the first race finishing twenty-first but then won races 5 and 6 which shunts them from fifth to third overall, six points behind Aguila.