Wind Gods finally play nice at Cumberland Cup

London, UK (May 2, 2014) – Royal Thames Yacht Club’s 2014 edition of the Cumberland Cup is underway with eight international, teams gathering to compete in this prestigious 2 on 2 team racing event, held in J/80s in the idyllic stadium setting of Queen Mary Reservoir.

Unfortunately, the wind gods weren’t playing ball yesterday, so competitors spent the day enjoying Queen Mary’s excellent catering service, before a reception at the RTYC clubhouse which was attended by RTYC’s Commodore, the Duke of York.

However, today was a different story, and the teams who have travelled from as far afield as Australia, USA and throughout Europe enjoyed a great day’s sailing. A consistent 10kts, with 15kt gusts allowed to fit in 20 races.

The event is being ably headed up by PRO Gill Smith, who is no newcomer to Queen Mary’s conditions, and knows how best to squeeze in as many races as possible. “Much better day than yesterday, for a northerly breeze at QM ideal racing, got in just as it started to pipe up with some rain clouds racing, great boat handling, teams and umpires played nicely as well,” noted Gill.

Yacht Club Costa Smeralda have demonstrated skill and talent from their first race of the day, finishing as overnight leaders with 100% race wins. Antonio Winspeare of YCCS commented:

“We didn’t make any major mistakes, and those minor mistakes which we did make we were able to quickly recover from. This makes a nice change from yesterday’s conditions, the calls we were expecting to get from the umpires didn’t happen – we only had calls from the Canada geese! All of today’s sailing was very close, there seems to be some strong competitions from Royal Thames Yacht Club and New York Yacht Club. We have certainly been lucky today.”

Sitting in a close 2nd with 80% race wins is RTYC; skipper, Sam Maxfield, stated: “We’ve only lost to the Italians so far, it was a really close race which all came down to the finish where one boat snuck out of a lock. We’ve had a great day though in these champagne sailing conditions. Excellent socials too…”

Each team has now completed 5 races, and with rankings based on % of races won, the overnight results are as follows:

1. Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, 100% wins
2. Royal Thames Yacht Club, 80% wins
3. New York Yacht Club, 60% wins
3. Easter Yacht Club, 60% wins
5. Yale Corinthian, 40% wins
5. Cumberland, 40% wins
7. Royal Perth Yacht Club, 20% wins
8. Royal Southern Yacht Club, 0% wins

Source: Event media