Whooper wins Black Group
Whooper at Lendy Cowes Week © Paul Wyeth
Giovanni Belgrano’s 38ft Laurent Giles Whooper, which was confirmed yesterday as overall winner among the Black Group yachts, has also been announced as overall Lendy Cowes Week winner.
The overall winner among the White Group dayboats is 14 year old Freddie Peters, who also won the RS Elite class, the Newcomers’ trophy and Young Skippers Trophy.
The RS Elite is renowned for close racing, but Peters’ Riff Raff dominated the leader board, winning all but one race. Ossie Stewart’s More T Vicar took second overall and Colin Smith’s Shaken Not Stirred third.
The final day of Lendy Cowes Week dawned bright and sunny, with a west north westerly breeze of 7-10 knots. All starts today took place from the Royal Yacht Squadron’s inner line, with an accelerated starting sequence for the reduced number of entries in Black Group, which finished their points series yesterday.
The last start of the week was for the XOD class. John Tremlett’s Lass, went into the last race for the XODs as overall leader 14 points ahead of Simon Russell’s Swallow, counting four first places and a second.
However, Tremlett’s discarded 18th place from his result on the opening day left his overall lead in this big fleet vulnerable to a less than perfect result in the final race.
Story by Rupert Holmes
