Palmer with a day to spare

An update from the Dragon class' Edinburgh Cup in Weymouth

Britain's David Palmer, sailing GBR700 with Mark Pettit and Kasper Harsberg, won today's fourth race by an impressive margine at the Dragon Edinburgh Cup in Weymouth to take the championship with with a 1, 2, 2, 1 score line and a day to spare. With only one more race scheduled for tomorrow's final day and with the discard coming into play after that fifth race, David Palmer and his crew cannot be beaten and are declared the 2007 International Dragon Edinburgh Cup winners and Dragon British National Champions.

Although David Palmer is a clear winner the battle on the final is for second and third places. Len Jones, sailing GBR708 with Jamie Lea and Philip Catmur, is currently lying second on 19 points but the two Irish teams - Andrew Craig, sailing IRL192 with Don O'Dowd and Aidan O'Connell; and Neil Hegarty, sailing IRL176 with Peter Bowring and David Williams, are hard on his heels and both score 21 points going into the final day, meaning any of the three could take second place, while third is an equally open book that almost anyone in the top ten could close.

The third day of the championship got off to a slow start as the competitors spent the morning waiting for the overnight gales to abate. Eventually at 1400 the call came to go afloat with race four scheduled to start at 1530. When the competitors got down to the start area the wind was still between 20 and 25 knots from around 265 degrees and there was a big swell running with a difficult chop laid over the top of it. After several hours of inactivity the fleet was decidedly skittish and it took three attempts and the invocation of the black flag to get them underway cleanly.

Sadly the big swells and still strong winds caught a few people out including Solent Dragon Fleet Captain Gavia Wilkinson-Cox, whose middle man Tom Marsh lost his balance momentarily on the first run, got caught by the top of a wave and found himself out of the boat. Gavia and her remaining crew member Ben Hancock immediately turned back but the crew of GBR688 Quicksilver III, which was just behind them, had seen him go over the side and reached Tom first pulling him straight aboard as they doused the kite. Within moments a rescue boat was alongside and Tom was returned to his own boat. Not surprisingly, at tonight's daily prize giving the always entertaining Dubarry Daily prize, which is presented by the Dubarry footwear company and awarded by a secret committee for 'special achievement' each day, went to Gavia and her crew for their impressive swimming display.

The incident above and several other gear failures meant that our press boat spent much of the day doubling as a safety boat rather than watching the racing so to talk us through today's action we turned to Ireland's Andrew Craig, one of the three helms who will be battling it out for second place tomorrow, to give us a sailor's eye view.

Andrew Craig recounted their race: "So today was a really interesting day. Obviously [we had] a really long wait as the wind was forecast to comedown. I think the fleet was quite apprehensive when we got down to the race area because it was still blowing at between 20 and 25 knots and then there were two general recalls and he [the PRO] then, quite rightly, put up the black flag having adjusted the start line a couple of times.

"I think in all the while we were going through those three starting procedures the wind was actually easing. There was a shift at 20 seconds to go and it went hard left and fell away quite a bit and we tacked immediately on the shift and headed for the shore at a very high angle and when everybody came to the top mark the first five or six boats were quite close. GBR700 [David Palmer] had got a little bit ahead. We were approaching the mark on the layline [in second] and they tacked a very hard cover on us so we tacked to clear ourselves and then the wind shifted to the right which meant they came right back up and so our clearing tack was a complete give away which was where they probably got away.

"They had a nice lead then and there were a number of shifts down the run. Just towards the end of the run there was a right shift 200m out for the leeward mark and we saw it and gybed onto it a got around the correct [right] gate mark and the boats that chose that mark and headed towards the shore broke the back of the remaining fleet. GBR700 was first into that right shift so she doubled her distance and then behind us there were five or six separated from the pack by the next top mark.

"After that it settled down very much for the leader and ourselves in second place because the pattern had become clear that it was the right hand side of the course that was paying and we just had to shepherd the fleet for the rest of the race. There was a very hard tussle between Quentin Strauss and Tim Tavinor for third place. It was very, very close and in fact Tim went with a low loose cover instead of tacking right on him and that let Quentin through.

"It was a fantastic day's sailing with bright sunshine and great wind. As we say in the Dragon fleet - Champagne conditions!"

Top Ten Provisional Results After Three Races

1. GBR700 David Palmer 1, 2, 2, 1 - 6 points
2. GBR708 Len Jones 9, 1, 3, 6 - 19 points
3. IRL192 Andrew Craig 6, 7, 6, 2 - 21 points
4. IRL176 Neil Hegarty 4, 6, 4, 7 - 21 points
5. GBR684 Michael Holmes 3, 11, 12, 5 - 31 points
6. GBR729 Tim Tavinor 5, 8, 15, 4 - 32 points 7. GBR719 Paul Woodman 13, 5, 5, 9 - 32 points
8. GBR656 Ivan Bradbury 14, 4, 1, 15 - 34 points
9. GBR653 Owen Pay 12, 3, 9, 10 - 34 points
10. GBR682 Eric Williams 2, 9, 14, 13 - 38 points

Full results here

The event is generously supported by Aberdeen Asset Management, Pettircrow Boat Builders, Palmers Brewery, Dean and Reddyhoff, ProRainer Clothing, Bussells Chandlery, Weymouth & Portland Borough Council, Western Marquees, Marlin RIBs, Dubarry and Bollé.