Ainslie wins Gold Cup
Another great Gold Cup regatta
Usual story. Some really good and exciting races, some really boring ones...........and then the vagaries of the weather.
Day one, light and fluky - if boats split you could get a 10 boat length lead before the first mark
Day 2 Blow the dog off the chain sort of weather. Fair bit of damage but magnificent boat handling in some of the races. Damage to be expected given the boats are often within a foot of each other in 25 knots of breeze.
................and to the top of the board came Ben Ainslie and his crew from the UK.
Totaling five Olympic medals between them (most of them Golds!!) this team was expected to do well...............but not to dominate (unbeaten in the round robin) mainly because of their limited experience in match racing.
Ainslie did not always do well in the match racing pre-starts but once he got clear air..he was gone. Back to the basics of boat speed and wind shifts.
As always the skippers involved in the event offered high praise for the IOD's as a match racing boat..........one, that because of it's classic design, is unique on the match racing world tour.
The event was televised for viewing around Christmas time and once again via the TV and publication media the Bermuda IOD Fleet has made a significant contribution in promoting the Class.
Winners photographs (care of Ben Nicholls) in the photo gallery
......................and just in case you got missed a big THANK YOU to all the Class members who put in time repairing boats and working for the event.
Written By: iodfleet_admin
Date Posted: 10/15/2009
Number of Views: 333
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