The word ‘cakewalk’ springs to mind. Prada’s Gavin Brady, Pyewacket tactician Robbie Haines and the crew of the George Andreadis’ Greek IC45 Atalanti X took the One Ton Cup, contested off Pwllheli in Wales from 3-8 September, and the IC45 world title without breaking a sweat.

In the first nine races, their string of guns was marred only by a couple of second places, in races five and six. The cosy fleet of six boats was in reality an occasionally unruly class of five under an unforgiving teacher.

Top of the class was One World’s Ben Ainslie, at the helm of David MacLean’s IC45 Babbalaas. With Australia’s Whitbread and America’s Cup veteran Kelvin Harrap calling the shots, Babbalaas turned in a series of consistently top three results (a discarded sixth excepted) to claim second from Nigel Bramwell’s flapping IC45 Hawk. Second place was briefly a possibility for Hawk but a few confused starts, unexpected from tactician Dave Bedford, soon secured third.

Despite three second places, Chris Little’s Bounder, with Jeremy Robinson at the helm and Craig Mitchell on tactics, never seemed to find any consistency and a 50 percent penalty having finished sixth in race six (ninth place in a six-boat fleet) constituted the worst result of the week.

The Kandlers’ two scratch teams will be itching for some time yet. Faster K-Yote 2, helmed by Laurent Delage and assisted by Tanguy Cariou, picked up a second place in the last race but otherwise kept well clear of the top three and DSQ’d in race five. Bringing up the rear in Faster K-Yote 1 was San Francisco’s Whitbread and America’s Cup veteran Dawn Riley with Melissa Purdy at her shoulder.