Peter Cunningham Reports......
We were nearly in major contention as the first race on Sunday was abandoned when we were well ahead of the fleet and only about 400 meters from the windward mark. They abandoned the race because the wind had shifted but there was wind all over the course. Lot of cursing, not just from us. Our main competitors were well down the fleet as well except for Jens, the eventual winner.
Then we had a disastrous last race, not making the pin to start and getting caught in a mess of boats (our Olympic crew maintained that all the boats blanketing us to windward were over but the committee just wanted to get the last race off), letting the current drift us onto the windward mark, and a terrible leeward mark rounding that was caused by poor communications and bad steering. So we finished 17th out of 35 which was our worst race.
Our 16th finish was because we went right and the wind kept going left (by 50 degrees over the course of the race); they did not cancel that one, I guess because it was a continuous shift rather than a fairly sudden one.
Straight line we were very fast throughout the regatta and our crew were superb!
Sorry not to bring the Cup to Burnham; it is one of the oldest awards in sailing and quite big!