UFO Info Week-End

AS A generally successful English season draws to its close even though the prospect of this winter’s

AS A generally successful English season draws to its close, even though the prospect of this winter’s visit to Australia has introduced a healthy dose of reality and a rather different perspective, international cricket is still in its more or less permanent state of turmoil and causing much huffing and puffing in the corridors of power.
Cricket and its administrators have a genius for not foreseeing problems likely to arise in the future. He hopes to build a slightly longer, stronger, but faster version of the catamaran which he hands over to Ellen MacArthur in October.. Peyron has confirmed he will take part in the second edition of the event he founded, The Race, in 2004. Even then, all three of them were beaten by the fourth big boat on parade, Peter Morton’s Mandrake, sailing with some strong local talent for a hastily organised second-string Irish team. Ireland Orange was sixth, whereas the first string Ireland Green was last.The attempt by Bruno Peyron to beat the record for sailing round Britain and Ireland failed by over an hour as the 110ft catamaran, Orange, was becalmed during the last few hours. We thought the England Red and Wales teams would be very strong and only expected to be third.” Instead, it was England Red which was third behind the Netherlands and the only consolation for the fourth-placed Wales team was that Nick Hewson’s Team Tonic won the battle of the big Farr 52s against Peter Harrison’s Chernikeeff 2 and Kit Hobday’s Bear of Britain. “The whole team, especially Jean-Yves Le Goff’s Clin d’Oeil, prefers stronger winds, so we were worried when we saw the forecast for the week’s light conditions.

To add to the celebration, which included one of the sponsor’s watches for each of the three skippers, their team captain, Gery Trentesaux, saw his Courrier Nord become the top-scoring boat of all 33 representing 11 teams. Eric Fries’ Fastwave 3 shared second place for France Red.
“We were surprised, but we knew the boats were competitive, having raced them in the Solent earlier this year,” said Trentesaux. France Red, which had dominated the competition since the second day, finished the Rolex Commodores’ Cup in style, pulling further ahead during yesterday’s Line 7 New Zealand race. Lightweight double sculls: England (F Gibson, S Watts) 8:10.69.. Lightweight double sculls: Australia (D Stewart, H Karrasch) 6:58.32. Fours: Australia (R Douglas, T Johnston, C McKenzie-McHarg, D Dennis) 6:33.26 WOMEN: Single sculls: Canada (J Rumball) 8min 35.75sec Pairs: Scotland (A Barnes, P Dixon) 8:43.75 Double sculls: Canada (L Middleton, S Norwood) 8:04.42.

England won the re-row.Brookes are making a habit of doing their finals twice, for it was they who turned the tables on Cambridge at Henley after geese interfered with the final.COMMONWEALTH CHAMPIONSHIPS (Nottingham): Finals (winners only): MEN: Single sculls: Australia (M Punch) 7min 42.63sec Pairs: Canada (D Kay, G Hodgson) 7:04.03 Lightweight pairs: Canada (L Parsons, E Oinonen) 7:45.19 Double sculls: Australia (C Jones, P Hardcastle) 7:02.56. Australia and Canada were clear in gold and silver positions when the clash took place. The Under-23 silver medallist, Mitchell Punch, won the single sculls. All but one of their entries won a medal, and Canada’s team, put together for this event, also won medals in all events in which they took part.Jill Lancaster and Georgina Simpson won two medals for Zimbabwe, gold in the lightweight pairs and silver in the lightweight double sculls.The major incident of the regatta was a re-row for the bronze medal between the coxless fours of England, alias Oxford Brookes, and Scotland, alias Aberdeen, after New Zealand were disqualified for steering into the English boat. The men’s lightweight sculls neatly illustrated the point – the winner Hamish Karrasch of Australia is a world medallist, while the Guernsey sculler Melvyn Harbour was in his first 2,000 metre race.The Australians won the men’s heavy and light double sculls, coxless fours, quadruple sculls and lightweight eight.

Ten countries shared the medals in 23 boat classes.
The Australian team are preparing for the World Championships next month, whereas England fielded largely club units and development crews, and countries like Scotland and Wales the strongest they could find from relatively small pools of talent. Australia crews came out on top of the Commonwealth championships at the National Water Sports Centre, Nottingham, yesterday, when they won seven golds to Canada’s six and England’s five. Thomson Local Classic: 1 Cortaflex Machiavelli (W Funnell, GB) clear, 43.75sec; 2 Audis Principal (H Ankarcrona, Swe) clear, 47.10; 3 Indecis de 6 Censes (D Meech, NZ) clear, 47.29.. Fordyce Curry Young Horse Jump-Off: 1 Casino (K Brown, GB) clear, 42.69sec; 2 Platinum (K Brown, GB) clear, 43.55; 3 Claydons Ice (C Hanley, Irl) clear, 45.26.