Confused finish to yachting series

Press, 6 April 1981, Page 6

Confused finish to yachting series

PA -Auckland Confusion surrounded the end of the (Stewart 34 match-racing yachting series held on the Waitemata Harbour yesterday. Rod Davis, of the United States, left the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron last evening convinced that he was the winntr of the Citizen series, but club officials said that the situation was not likely to resolve Itself “for quite some time.” Davis and Harold Cudmore, of Ireland, both finished the contest with seven out of a possible nine wins. On -a countback system the contest is supposedly Davis’s, as he beat Cudmore when the pair raced one another. Squadron officials were considering a sail-off between the pair today to resolve the matter, but Davis was not happy with the idea. “The rules are quite straightforward,” he said. “We have won the series on the countback."It is not possible to have an extra race because our crews hive all split up and gone home.” Davis beat Cudmore when they

raced one another in the fourth round on Saturday. ■ Cudmore is in favour of * sailoff. “If we have one at least i have a 50 per cent, chance of winning the series,”’ said the runner-up for the last two years. “If we don’t have a sail-off 1 won’t even have a chance.” The race committee also has to deal with several protests which will affect the minor platings in the contest. Provisionally third is last year’s winner, Dick Deaver, of the United States, who suffered the embarrassment of going aground off Devonport in his race against Richard Dodson, of New Zealand, yesterday. Deaver and an Auckland skipper, Evan Kerr-Taylor, who finished fourth on the countback, has six wins each. Australia’s Mark Bethwalte anti Helmer Pedersen, from Hong Kong, won five events, while New Zealand’s Terry • McDell • and Pelle Pettersen, of Sweden, had three victories. Dodson won two races, and Australia’s Gordon Ingate, one;