Weather eye brings Ingvall Fastnet win

Sailing

Only one of the 240 yachts in the Fastnet Race had made it to the finish in Plymouth yesterday evening, as the whole of the Champagne Mumm Admiral's Cup fleet prepared for a fourth night at sea and the organisers hurriedly looked for insurance certificates covering the postponement and rescheduling of the prize-giving.

By escaping the clutches of a developing high-pressure system, Ludde Ingvall brought home the Swedish maxi Nicorette several hours before his nearest rival completed the 605-mile course. "We saw what was happening as we went round the rock and did everything we could to stay ahead of that system coming in from the west," Ingvall said.

All of the CMAC yachts went round the rock yesterday more than 24 hours after Nicorette, and the Italians were again turning the screw on the leading Americans. On corrected time, Capricorno was the leading big boat, with America's Blue Yankee last of the eight. In the 40s class, BravaQ8 was one place ahead of Pigs in Space, and the 36ft Mumm a Mia! was leading its class, three places ahead of No Problem.

Britain was last in the two smaller classes and had slipped to fourth on corrected time in the big boat class.