Sailing: Indulgence maintains challenge for honours: Second place for Britain's Warden Owen

HAVING successfully scaled the ladder to win the first of two races in the 50ft Grand Prix here yesterday, Britain's Eddy Warden Owen, in Indulgence, then struggled to seventh place in the second.

However, it was enough to put the British Champagne Mumm Admiral's Cup team yacht into second place overall. Warden Owen trails Pierre Mas, in one of the three French yachts that will defend the Admiral's Cup, Corum Saphir, and went ahead of Australia's Syd Fischer, in Ragamuffin.

On another day of wind-influenced postponements in Hayling Bay, attempts to catch up and stage the third race failed, so a decision will be taken today on whether to limit the series to six races or go for a seventh.

Indulgence was not the only one struggling to make sense of the breeze. Paul Cayard, on Capricorno, went from first to eighth in the second race. Having come into this regatta sharing the world tour lead with France's Marc Pajot, Cayard is surprisingly lying seventh equal in the British event, with Ireland's Dave Cummins in Heaven Is Irish.

Pajot is sixth in the British regatta but last night was lodging protests against Corum, Jens Christensen in Container, and John Kolius in Champosa in the first race, and against Ragamuffin in the second.

In the Two Ton World Cup, a broken rudder scuppered the chances of the Japanese boat, Swing, which was forced to retire from the penultimate event, the 24-hour race. The remaining six yachts, with New Zealand's Shockwave and Italy's Larouge left to fight it out, were covering a 150-mile course between the Isle of Wight, Poole, and a mid-Channel buoy.

Denmark's Ib Anderson, a key crew member on the British yacht, GBE International, may miss the start of the Admiral's Cup next week after breaking a finger.