Stewart Brewing 707 Edinburgh Cup at Port Edgar Yacht Club

707 Edinburgh Cup at Port Edgar © Ben Logan

707 Edinburgh Cup at Port Edgar © Dale Sandercock

707 Edinburgh Cup at Port Edgar © Dale Sandercock

The 707 Edinburgh Cup sponsored by Stewart Brewing kicked off the 707 season in style on Saturday 25th April hosted by Port Edgar Yacht Club.

With 16 boats taking the line in St David's Bay on the Forth, it demonstrated the strength of the most active One Design Keelboat Fleet in the UK. The fleet welcomed new member Ian McCarlie and team who recently purchased Isbean who showed great promise and is one to watch, we also had 2 student teams from Dundee University Sailing Club on the water utilising the class association boats.

The PEYC race team led by the experienced Paul Deponio and Margaret Tait set a square line and beat that that took the fleet out into a 10 knot Easterly. With the series having no discard the key was consistency, and most teams were probably thinking "don't be early in race 1". Tsunami 2 was a bit too eager after a winter of preparation and anticipation and were OCS in race 1, having to return, eventually starting last and ultimately fighting to recover a 7th with the race win being taken by the reigning National Champions Seaword, Yorkshire's More T vicar was 2nd and Po came in 3rd.

Race 2 helped Tsunami 2's new helm Nick Bell feel a bit better about life with them taking the win, local boat Eastlander in 2nd and the consistent More T Vicar in 3rd.

Race 3 was a very tight race throughout with Braveheart sailing a near perfect race, leading from first windward gate only to be pipped on the final run by Guy Neville and his crew on Po.

The conditions fortified throughout the day with the breeze building into champagne conditions with decent chop developing with the wind against the strengthening ebb tide. Tactics were dictated by the tide and every mark provided opportunities to take places or slide backwards. Racing was tight with race wins going to 4 boats over 5 races. Credit to the race officer and crew who delivered high quality racing. With a very light forecast for Sunday the race officer took advantage of the superb conditions to run a 5th race. This proved to be very wise as no racing was possible on Sunday.

Races 4 & 5 turned into the "More T Vicar" show with two bullets and near flawless racing by Ben Williamson and team from Royal Yorkshire Yacht Club.

With no discards, consistency was always going to be the key and More T Vicar ran out clear winners with a 2,3,3,1,1 scoreline closely followed by team Neville in Po scoring 3,4,1,3,2 with Tsunami 2 making up the podium scoring 7,1,4,2,5.

Thanks to Port Edgar Yacht Club and their team of volunteers for running an excellent event delivering high quality racing for the fleet.

Next up the fleet make their way to the legendary Loch Fyne for the Scottish Series, see you there!

Overall Results: