Final day

Rainy gusty day marks the end of a dramatic final Skandia Cowes Week

Driving rain and a bracing Force 5 deterred many competitors from the race track on the final day of Skandia Cowes Week, but the 14 remaining unclaimed trophies found worthy winners as class warfare continued to the bitter end.

Conditions in the Solent were positively wintry as gusts reached 30 knots and with big and choppy seas which gave the reduced fleet a testing last day and some brand new repair bills.

Graham and Stephen Bailey duly completed a win in the Etchells class by halting a sequence of victories from Mark Downer's Moonlight. For the past four days Moonlight has come in first but today the Baileys, winners for the past two years, posted a 90 second win over their adversaries to claim the 2008 prize.

Graham's wife Julia Bailey needed a 4th or better in Aimee to make certain of a win in the Dragon class and she managed it by a small matter of seven seconds as Owen Pay put the pressure on in Njord. Tillmann Wiese won his first race of the Week in C's Toy to finish third overall while Len Jones who came second in Rumours last year, posted a third place today which gives him another second overall.

Among the big boats Niklas Zennstrom's Ran had IRC Class Zero wrapped up by Friday after winning five of the seven races but it was Andy Soriano's elegant Mills 68 Alegre, that crossed the line first every day sometimes with as much as a 30 minute advantage over the TP52s.

The building wind and driving rain combined to create boat breaking conditions, prompting the crew on Ran to retire just a few minutes before the start of racing and head back to Hamble. Stuart Robinson's crew on Stay Calm fought tooth and nail with Charles Dunstone on Rio all week but also stayed out of the fray today to give the Carphone Warehouse boss his second bullet of the week.

In IRC Class 1 John Dean's brand new Beneteau First 45 Poppy of Portland won the class with a race to spare. Named after the new marina that Dean's company is building in Weymouth, next door to the 2012 Olympic sailing venue, Poppy of Portland competed in the Rolex Commodores' Cup last month as part of the GBR White team that finished in 8th place.

Dean was especially pleased to finish ahead of Nick and Anne Haigh's Dark & Steamy on that occasion, so repeating the success at Skandia Cowes Week was enough for him to abandon racing today and head off back to Poole. Francois Goubau was class runner up in his Beneteau First 47.7 Moana.

Another member of the GBR White team Jim MacGregor's brand new Elan 410 Premier Flair led the way in IRC Class 2 achieving a consistent series of top five results ahead of Michael Greville's Ker 39 Erivale III in second.

In the ten strong 1720 class, Neil Angel, who was runner-up in 2007 to Mark Greenaway's La Licorne, took class honours after posting four wins while Giles Peckham brought the curtain down on a sensational week with a win in the Darings on Dauntless.

Peckham started the week by winning the 2008 Volkswagen Touareg King of Cowes at Skandia Cowes Week regatta, and although he was beaten in the last Daring race by Jeremy Preston's Defender, he had done enough to also add the 2008 Daring title to his previous three crowns.

"It has been a very good week," Peckham said. "We have been pushed hard all the way in the Darings by Defender so it has been a good contest. In the King of Cowes, stepping into a difference class and coming up against some of the best helms in the business was a big challenge. I was lucky I had bought a Laser SB3 in March and did the Round the Island race in it which was good practice and I had a superb crew in Steve White and Craig Bulton. If we get invited back, my co-helm Milo Carver will compete instead of me next year, because you can only have so many cars."

Any competitor with the surname MacDonald is to be feared and Duncan MacDonald, the brother of professional racing skipper Neal, proved to be a formidable competitor in the J/Sprit class racing his J/90 Joe 90. He was first past the post every day and scored five bullets on corrected time, reducing J'ronimo to second place and Geoff Payne's Jolene to third.

Yet again, the competition among the various J boat classes was riveting and among the J/109s, which attracted a field of 39, there was the usual three way knuckle bruiser between Michael Ewart-Smith and Ben Richards on Zelda, Matt Boyle (and thedailysail's own Andy Nicholson) on Shiva and Bruce Jubb, Mike Flood and Jeff Dakin on Johnny Blue II.

Zelda, who won the 2008 J/Cup in May, made no mistakes for the first four days but on day five, the strong tides and shifting winds rendered the race a bit of a lottery and Matt Boyle took advantage to wrestle the initiative away. It was Johnny Blue II's turn for honours on Thursday, though Zelda returned to her winning ways on Friday to claim an overall victory. Bill West, the former Skandia Marketing Director, who was responsible for the original decision to sponsor the Cowes regatta 14 years ago, finished midway down the fleet on Jo Jo Gunne racing in his first Skandia Cowes Week, and will doubtless be back for more next year.

Louise Morton missed out on the Liz Earle Ladies Day Trophy to Sonar sailor Kerry Gruson but her name will be the first on the Quarter Tonner trophy after a superb performance by her and her all-female crew of Liz Rushall, Libby Deegan (navigator and pit), Vicky Lenz (jib trimmer and downwind trimmer), Charlotte Lawrence (bow) and Nicky Bethwaite from Australia in her Quarter Tonner Espada.

Her success signals a busy winter since not only will she be in training in order to outdo her husband Peter, who has bought his own Quarter Tonner to campaign next year, but she will also be honing her skills in the Laser SB3s, just in case.

In the X One Design class, Simon Russell, the 2007 champion finally climbed to the top of the podium for the first time today in what has been a disappointing week by his standards. His title has been pocketed by Stuart Jardine in Lone Star who has won two races this week, fending off claims from 79 other craft to carry on a fine tradition. In second place was Steve Lawrence's Catherine while Peter Baines came third in Calypso, the 1948 XOD, to bring the curtain down on another cracking contest.

Skandia's final prize giving

Hundreds of competitors made their way to the Haven Events Centre at Cowes Yacht Haven to collect their well-earned silverware/Thomas Lyte crystal ware after an extremely tough and competitive week.

Cowes Radio presenter Dick Johnson and Skandia's Sponsorship Manager Tim Sewell ably carried out the marathon task of presenting competitors with their trophies which included the overall Black Group and White Group Trophy winners: Dean & Dyball (MG346 in Class 6), and Savage Sailing Team (J/80).

The Skandia Young Skipper's Trophy for the top performing yacht skippered by a young person under the age of 25 was presented to 21-year-old Seb Ribard sailing a J/80 AgainstMalaria.com.

One of the most notable prizes tonight was the The Britannia Salver presented to the crew of Benny Kelly's TP52 Panthera for their outstanding act of seamanship on Monday when they pulled from the water a member of crew from a boat in Class 1.

Next year's Cowes Week will take place from 1 to 8 August.