Duffus leads Scottish revival

Sailing

By just 19 seconds, Alex Duffus scored his first win in the big boat class of the Rover Series here yesterday in the little Mumm 30 Eclipse. The Clyde Cruising Club man helped reverse Scottish fortunes in what has been a string Irish invasion and for good measure Chris Bonar's Bateleur '93 was second.

On a soggy day of five to 12-knot north-easterlies, the only boat to maintain an unbeaten record was Robert Perry's class six Revolver, though John Corson's Salamander XII is unbeaten in the private J35 battle within class two.

With two firsts and a third, Gourock competitor Keith Lawrence is starting to put a respectable series together in his Bashford Howison 36 Playback, a name all too ironic when he had to go back and restart for being over the line early in the feeder race.

American visitor Art Brereton was kicking himself after establishing a handsome lead in the Melges 24 class only to miss the finish line and see first Roger Peacock and then Kim Slater snatch the glory. He was third again in the second race of the day, won by Mike Lennon from David Clark.

Andy Beadsworth again showed his match-racing strength at the Dutch Olympic regatta at Medemblik where he just made the cut in the fleet racing and then made the semi-finals in the one-on-one section. Although then losing to the eventual winner, Germany's double gold-medallist, Jochen Schumann, he beat the reigning Olympic champion, Denmark's Jesper Bank, in the play-off for third.

And there was a considerable morale boost for Glyn Charles and George Skoudas, second in the Star class to the former world champion Torben Grael. A string of good results put the rest of a quality fleet behind them.

But a poor trio of races on Saturday kept Ben Ainslie down to seventh overall in the Laser class and the women's pairing in the 470, Bethan Raggatt and Sue Carr had another unhappy time, finishing 19th.