Pindar Radii hangs in there

Two points separate the Richards brothers from Mason Woodworth's General Electric at the Lake Como 18ft skiff Grand Prix

Day 2 of the 18ft Skiff Grand Prix in Lake Como again looked like it was going to be waiting game for the breeze to fill in. But by 2pm the skies had cleared and the fleet were called to the water. The race officer decided to fire off the first race of the day in the dying northerly, before the thermal southerly kicked in. This was almost a cut and paste of the previous days race sailed also in a light 5-6 knots, when Pindar Radii dominated in the conditions. Pica this time picked up the second spot while General Electric was relegated to third. The Italian team in Elcotec came in a consistent fourth. The race officer did well to shorten the course as the breeze faded completely, allowing the whole fleet to complete the race.

Within 30 minutes, a building 12-15 knot breeze had kicked in from the south providing the teams with an energy sapping three races back to back with the big rigs on - plenty of action for the camera teams! First out of the blocks in race 2 was Mason Woodworth and his team in General Electric, who put all the winter big breeze training and their trip down under to the Giltinan to good use. They had a ding-dong battle with Pindar Radii but eventually turned out on top for their first win of the series. Pindar Radii had a tough battle in the end to hold off the heavy breeze experts in the shape of Fleming Clausen and his GP Covers team from Denmark but managed to secure their second spot. In the third race of the day, the wind was starting to take its toll, with some spectacular capsizes leading to a number of retirements, but with the breeze steadying at 15-16 knots, it provided the perfect paying field for another close race with only seconds between the top teams. General Electric were clearly revelling in the conditions and romped off to an unassailable lead by the first round. The real battle took place for second, a four way battle between Pindar Radii, Elcotec, Ed Browne with his SELS team and the Danish team on Botolex. GP Covers were up there but were involved in a downwind/upwind collision with Hurley Palmer Flatt from the UK - amazingly there was no serious damage. Back to the race, and Pindar Radii just managed to squeeze into second by a beatifully timed gybe into the finish line just ahead of the Danish team. The ever consistent Italian team of Elcotec finishing fourth again.

The last race proved to be the undoing for most - only 7 of the 20 entries managed to finish, with various gear breakage and tired teams from capsize recovery to blame. Pindar Radii found their top gear in this breeze at last and led from start to finish, just ahead of the GP Covers team. Their Danish team mates in Botolex finished third while the Hungarian team of www.skiffsailing.hun took fourth. General Electric were lying in third but an uncharacteristic boat handling error left them updside down at the last leeward mark, but somehow got the skiff up quickly to finish 5th.

Monday, the last day of racing, is forecast grey and dull, but if it was anything like today - bring it on say all the teams!

Overall after 5 races, 20 entries (one discard)

Pindar Radii (GBR) - Andy Richards, Andrew Fairley, Dave Richards 5pts
General Electric (GBR) - Mason Woodworth, David Brown, Simon Hamilton 7pts
Elcotec (ITA) - Stefano Lagi, Giovanni Bonzio, Luca Bonezzi 16pts
Pica (GBR) - James Mears, Matt Gill, Stuart Mears 17pts
Botolex (DEN) - Jesper Broendum, Jesper Holst, Martin Friderichsen 18pts