Owen Clarke boats head both mono classes |
| Friday, 04 June 2004 |
| At the last update on Friday night Mike Golding inched into the lead in the 60’ class while Kip Stone on Artforms maintains a lead of 50 miles in the 50’s, barely 8 miles from the 60’ entry Skandia (ex Kingfisher). Since settling down after the problems caused by the failed keel motor, Mike Golding has been settling down to chipping away at the 30 mile lead held by Virbac on Wednesday when Jean Pierre Dick put the nose of his Farr designed 60’ into new breeze ahead of the rest of the fleet. By Friday morning the chasing yachts, led by Ecover had narrowed the lead to single figures and with Mike Sanderson on Pindar a few miles behind the stage was set for a leader change, This happened at 17.00 hrs, the last pole of the day.
Meanwhile in the fifty foot mono class, Kip Stone on Artforms extended his lead at one stage to sixty miles ahead his rival Joe Harris and four open sixties. His distance to finish places him a mere eight miles behind Nick Moloney’s Skandia and he’s clearly pushing his new Owen Clarke 50’ very hard. Kip reports from the yacht that: “The boat is humming along at a nice steady 12+ knots and the sea is mostly flat, so it's not too bumpy a ride. In three hours, I'll get the first position update for the day and discover whether I've stuck my nose into this new breeze first and gained a few miles, or whether the pack is still nipping at my heels. “
The storm force winds that have been affecting the 60’ multis and monos will soon break the peace of Artform’s flat seas. It’s going to be a long wet weekend for the men and women out in the middle of the Atlantic while we languish in the warmth of life ashore. |
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