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17:35 Thursday 9 Aug 2018 Sue Pelling/LCWWinners' quotes of the day

Team Swuzzlebubble on their way to winning Class 5 IRC overall with a day to spare – photo Paul Wyeth/LCW

Quotes from a selection of winners from today’s racing

Phil Plumtree, Swuzzlebubble, Class 5 IRC overall winner with a race to spare

“We are pretty well optimized for 8-10kts of breeze, which is what we had today, so perfect conditions for us. 

“The crew is fantastic and our navigation department headed by Leslie Ryan, does a fantastic job. That really does take all the pressure off everyone else, which is key.

“We had a very conservative start in the second rank and hung on off the pin end. It was quite a tricky line and couldn’t really get off it on starboard. We put in a little clearing tack and Jerry [Hill] said to me just let the Bubble do what she knows best and we let her sail, kept the speed up and extended and extended.

“We were a bit worried about Winsome going over to the mainland shore and getting some headers there, and she had a fantastic lift and came back up into the race again and joined us at the top mark. It is quite hard to control both sides of the beat, but the last beat was quite an easy cover on the other boats."

Jeremy Field, Sankher, Dragon

“We stole in at the last mark really. We couldn’t find William mark going up Southampton Water, we were lying second going up there. We rounded in about fifth having had to fetch off, which actually gave us the advantage of being able to see that everyone had hoisted their kites.

“Going down to Royal Thames we were soaking off too low and the breeze was going round to the north and, up by the buoy people were clearly tacking up for it, so we didn’t fly and we stayed high and took that height all the way down, which got us back up to third. Then with a huff and a puff of breeze we rolled the boat that was in second, then right at the last mark – Williams Shipping – we gybed inside and got an overlap with the lead boat, snug round there and, for the all important last 20 seconds of the race we were in the lead and crossed the line in first.”

Graham Bailey, Alchemy, Squib

“Although we have two events going on [class nationals and Lendy Cowes Week] I have always been interested in Cowes Week because it is my favourite regatta of all.

“Today was an interesting one with a very long start line and the tide taking the fleet over. The bias was towards the pin end but we elected to be about 20 per cent down from the committee boat, which is the wrong place to be but we figured we were going to avoid the massive pitfall of being swept over the port layline.

“We came out the start and got onto port quite quickly. It wasn’t looking great at that point but we just kept the boat tracking and saw the fleet going back onto starboard, tacking up and looking like they were miles ahead of us but I knew there was a real danger of them going over the layline and that is exactly what happened.

“We were on port with the tide sweeping us up and, with a little right-hander we had closed up and rounded the top mark in second to Spoof.

“By the last run we were level pegging. They elected to be on the right-hand side but us on the left gained a bit more tidal relief and picked up the vital puff of wind allowing us to round the bottom mark ahead and cross the line just three seconds ahead.”