Cowes Week: Baines is set to get return from Wenda

A SERIOUS attempt for a second win in the Captain's Cup, the class's national championship, has been launched by the X-Boat sailor, Peter Baines, in the Hamble-based Wenda. He scored his second win in two days yesterday, which puts him in a strong position for the five- day Cowes Week series which finishes on Friday, writes Stuart Alexander from Cowes.

Baines won the cup in 1992, won the non-Captain's Cup opening race of the week on Saturday, and his boat will be enjoying the relatively breezy conditions of the past two days in a fleet of more than 65 entries which is always hard fought.

In rather more strife was Jonathan Clark in the equally numerous Etchells 22s. A pre-start collision left his pounds 28,000 boat Naughty by Nature, delivered in May, with a gash in it and he had to be towed back to the dock.

The other boat involved, Mike Weston's Long White Cloud, was also damaged, but managed to sail back up the Medina under its own steam, though with all the crew gathered at the stern to keep the bow out of the water.

That left the field open for Peter Andreae to score his first win of the week over the winner of the previous day, Andreas Eichenaur, whose boat, Raptor, when sailed by the Australian builder, Ian Bashford, won the UK nationals in the Solent in June.

From the other side of the River Hamble at Warsash, Eddie Warden Owen steered the Italian Mumm 36, Mumm a Mia], to a win of more than two minutes from Ireland's Tom Roche in Noddy. The trio who had been disqualified the previous day, accused of going the wrong side of a buoy, Shogun, Ferocious and Germany's Aerosail 3, had their pleas of innocence accepted and were reinstated.

Back again in the winning spot in the Sigma 38s was David Knight's Summer Pudding. He has won three out of four starts to justify an orange and purple crew colour scheme that would have made them stand out wherever they were in the fleet.