Julia Bailey up to second

But Russian teams still dominate at the Dragon Edinburgh Cup

"About as difficult as it gets...I'm not sure when I've seen a trickier race course than that and the last race was particularly difficult," was how Graham Bailey described the second day of racing at the 2011 Dragon Edinburgh Cup supported by Aberdeen Asset Management in Abersoch. Despite the exceptionally difficult conditions the race committee was able to run two further races today bringing the total races sailed to four out of a possible six.

The day's two top performing teams were led by Cowes-based Julia Bailey, sailing Aimee with Graham Bailey and David Heritage, and Russia's Olga White, sailing Murka 7 with Martin Leifelt and Vadim Statsenko. Bailey took a third in race three and then went on to win race four in impressive style, taking her from fourth to second overall. White scored a ninth followed by a third and moves into third place, four points behind Bailey.

For overnight leader Mikhail Muratov, sailing Murka 8 with Valentin Uvarkin and Vladimir Krutskikh, it was a day of consolidation and a fifth followed by a ninth allowed him to retain his lead by a seven point margin. Martin Byrne's day got off to a tricky start when he and his crew of Pedro Andrade and Adam Winklemann found themselves close to colliding with the committee boat having been hit by another Dragon in the final moments before the start gun. Fortunately they missed the committee boat, but by the time they had extracted themselves from the situation they had been forced left and lost a lot of ground so finished the race in eighteenth place. They recovered somewhat in the final race with a seventh but go from second to fourth in the overall ranking. After a day of mixed fortunes with a convincing win in race three followed by a 29th in race four Klaus Diederich's sailing Fever with Peter O'Leary and David Burrows has dropped down from third into fifth but remains in the running for the Edinburgh Cup.

Other top performers today were Olaf Sorenson from Kinsale racing Christianna with Shawn Kingston and Mark Pettitt, and Tim Tavinor from Burnham racing Tigger with Thomas Wilton and Ollie Moser. Sorenson sailed an impressive third race, pushing race winner Klaus Diederichs all the way down the final run to finish a close second, while 2011 Dragon World Champion crew Tim Tavinor finally found his form again coming second to Julia Bailey in race four.

In the Corinthian competition Simon Brien of Cultra, Northern Ireland, sailing Kin with Mark Brien and David Gomes, and Richard Goodbody from Dun Laoghaire, on Diva with Rick and Rob Johnson, are going head to head. Brien was the day's top Corinthian moving up into second place two points behind Goodbody. Leaping into third place is the Medway's Julian Sowery, crewed by Claire Sowery and John Greenwood, who finished second and third in today's Corinthian races putting him into third place overall just two points ahead of Ireland's Nigel Bigg on Puca with Franz Rothschild and Pete Evans. Overnight Corinthian leader Mark Wade from Burnham, sailing Avalanche with Mandy Wade and Andrew Norden, struggled to get to grips with the difficult conditions ending up tenth Corinthian in both races and putting them out of serious contention for the overall prize.

There are two more days of racing remaining in the competition and tomorrow's forecast is for stronger, and hopefully more stable, winds. The plan is for two races tomorrow, the first of which will be race five of the championship and the second the legendary Edinburgh Cup Crew's Race. If everything goes to schedule race six, the final race of the series, will take place on Saturday morning. The single discard will come into play after the fifth race has been sailed.

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