Royal Thames Yacht Club Cumberland Cup - Day 2
by Sarah Hornby 5 May 2016 21:53 BST
4-7 May 2016
Racing at the 2016 RTYC Cumberland Cup © Alex Irwin /
www.sportography.tv
Queen Mary delivers again
For the second day in a row, the conditions were absolutely perfect for team racing. Queen Mary Reservoir delivered a cracking 12kts of Southerly breeze and glorious sunshine for RTYC's Cumberland Cup, meaning that the competitors, Race Management team and Umpires enjoyed a fantastic time on the water in the Club's fleet of matched J/80s.
42 races have been sailed, all of them very close, with umpire calls, penalties and position changes throughout. Having started Round Robin 2 the event is now ranked using win-points, which puts Southern Yacht Club (New Orleans) 0.5 of a win-point ahead of New York Yacht Club. Corky Potts former Commodore of Southern Yacht Club commented: 'We absolutely love the event, the weather is perfect, boats are great, crew are working well as a team, but you do have to be thick skinned to be on our team. The racing is very competitive, and the slick operation behind the scenes makes it a really enjoyable event.' A packed social programme accompanies the racing, and yesterday the teams were treated to an evening at Hampton Court Palace, Potts added: 'I was a little disappointed that the Queen didn't visit us last night, but I'm looking forward to seeing the Duke this evening.' RTYC Commodore the Duke of York will be welcoming the teams at the clubhouse in Knightsbridge.
Royal Perth Yacht Club were thrilled to secure 2 race wins today, with a very closely fought battle against Yale which they only narrowly missed out on. Andrew Waldby, Captain of Royal Perth stated: 'We had a great day on the water today, enjoying our best on the water performance so far, and overall we're having a fantastic time.'
Principal Race Officer, Jo Lucas, again packed in the races, having to manage a couple of significant wind shifts, she kept delays to an absolute minimum. Lucas stated: 'Today's racing has been very exciting to watch, a very lively day on the water indeed!'
All the teams have shown great improvement in boat handling over the past two days, as this is one of the only events in the world team racing calendar where spinnakers are used, all of the manoeuvres must be slick in order to ensure that the helm can work the team racing rules to their advantage, this requires expert communication and agility from all crew on board.
RTYC team member Arthur Henderson commented: 'We've had loads of really interesting races, very few have been won off the start line, it's been tit for tat all the way through, our team is improving as the event goes on, looking forward to the next couple of days.'
This is certainly a very closely fought event, all the results can be found here: http://events.ksail.co.uk/2016/CumberlandCup/DisplayStage1Summary.html and there is everything to play for with two more days to go.
Further information including results can be found at www.royalthames.com/Racing/Racing-Calendar-2016/Cumberland_Cup_2016.aspx