The wind had swung overnight into the South West and was up to 12-14 knots with a slowly building chop. With a strong current against them the boats had problems making the line and the fleet got away cleanly at the first attempt with the centre right seeming favoured. Favini made the best of the beat to lead round the weather mark ahead of Luca Santella, one of Italy's top sailors and a new face in the Melges class helming for Maspero Giovanni. Porter followed in third with Argyle Campbell fourth and Jeff Jones fifth. Going into the weather mark Art Brereton had looked set for the fourth slot but a slightly misjudged approach resulted in a last minute tack during which he fouled Campbell and by the time he'd done his turns he was back in thirteenth.

Down the run Favini opened up his lead while Santella held off Porter and Jones overtook Campbell. At the top of the second beat Porter was just able to sneak through Santella while Jones held fourth. Campbell had dropped back to eighth behind Alec Cutler, helming for John Sherlock, Kristian Nergaard and Jamie Lea, helming for Richard Thompson.

On the final run Favini just kept on extending his lead to the finish ahead of Porter and Santella. Behind them the pack was fighting for fourth with Cutler eventually coming out on top ahead of Jones, Nergaard and Lea.

By the start of race seven the wind was up to 16-18 knots with a commensurate increase in the chop. Again the current was holding the boats back making it difficult to cross the line. Several boats, including Cutler, Nergaard and Favini, found themselves so well buried that the only solution was to tack, take some transoms and come out on port at the right hand end.

Source: Fiona Brown