News - 2017

17:13 Friday 4 Aug 2017 Sue Pelling/LCWWinners' Quotes

Lendy on her way to winning the Lendy Finance Challenge – photo Paul Wyeth/LCW

A selection of quotes from the winners of today’s races

Paul Riddell – Head of marketing & communications for Lendy Ltd – Finance Challenge Winners

“We can’t quite believe it. This is our first year as Title Sponsor of Cowes Week and it has been an incredible week both on and off the water. We have had such as enthusiastic response from everyone here in Cowes, so to have won the Lendy Finance Challenge is wonderful.

“I know it sounds like it may have been fixed but it absolutely wasn’t, it has been full on out there this week. We’ve been tacking every three minutes, we’ve been thrown around the boat, lost a spinnaker, broken a few things, so to have actually won this Challenge against such great competition, naturally we are absolutely thrilled.”

Anthony Lunch, Swallow, Solitude

“It is surprising, we haven’t had such wonderful results this week in general but we have had good winds. We got off to a really good start at the pin end, we had the spinnaker up ready on the start line, and we were away and never looked back. It was fantastic. We were planning down the waves.

“Swallows are so wonderful in these conditions so it was a good note to finish on. It was a very tough however, on the beat today, with lumpy seas, much more than we thought it was going to be. Although the tide was taking us, there was a really nasty sea slowing us down.”

Alex Downer (15), Squib, Panther 3

“I am really pleased because this is the first time I have won a race at this regatta. We were doing reasonably well at the start and lying in third behind Aquabat and Lady Penelope but I think the turning point in the race was when we decided to head further out to the left, off Norris, on the run. Here we picked up more wind and got into the lead. It was then a case of just keeping cover on the fleet to the finish.”