Peter de Ridder sailing Mean Machine won the 2004 Mumm 30 European Championship having sailed to a 6th place in the only race sailed on the final day of the championship.

The fleet sat waiting for the breeze to arrive and at the first attempt of a start the wind dropped to less than 3 knots.

Eventually after waiting two and a half hours the fleet got away with the wind at 7 knots. Left up the beat leading up to the entrance of Southampton Water was the way to go on the first beat. Continuing their better run of form from the previous day Rainbow helmed by Mark Heeley lead to the first mark followed by Peter Bonham-Christie’s Bite the Bullet and Louis Browne’s Asterix.

With 11 points between Mean Machine and Bite the Bullet overnight, the crew on board Bite the Bullet must have been disappointed to see Mean Machine round the windward mark in 5th place.

Downwind and the current pushed the boats to the west away from the leeward mark. The leading bunch extended their lead but there was no place changing in the places that mattered, apart from Mean Machine dropping a place. So with the wind dropping and becoming patchy and a deadline to meet to get the crews off the water the race was sensibly shortened at the following windward mark. So Rainbow won Race 10 from Bite the Bullet and Asterix. Racing throughout the championship had been very tight with 7 different winners of the 10 races.

Overall Results (after 9 Races protest pending)

1st Mean Machine Peter de Ridder 49pts

2nd Bite the Bullet Richard Bonham Christie 56pts

3rd Asterix Louis Browne 62pts

4th Mammy! Diarmuid Foley 71pts

5th Media Network International Edd Clayson & John Gimson 85pts