SAILING/Cork Week: If Tuesday at Cork Week was "Champagne Sailing", then yesterday was certainly the hangover as light winds and misty rain returned to the 400-plus boat fleet at the mid-point of the biennial regatta.

The light airs took their toll on the classes one, two and three which were sailing the coastal course.

After six hours of racing, the course was abandoned for the first two classes in the west-going tide and no wind to return to the finish.

John Moorehead and Chris Ferres's Bengal Magic from Northern Ireland won the testing race for class three.

Following a hat-trick of first places on Tuesday, Colm Galavan's Lemon dropped to second overall after a ninth place in yesterday's single race for the hotly contested 1720 Sportsboat fleet obliged the Dún Laoghaire boat to use the single discard that came into force after the fifth race.

Charles Swingland's Dark Side won the day and the overall lead by just two points in the 16-boat class.

Colm Barrington's Magic Glove scored her fourth consecutive victory of the week yesterday during the Harbour Course race, finishing more than 20 minutes ahead of the next boat on the water.

Tim Costello's Tiamat placed second to retain second overall on a handicap corrected time difference of 15 minutes behind Barrington.

The New Zealand entry Maximus found her keel united, briefly, with the bottom of Cork Harbour for the second time this week during the course that took the 100-footer into Cobh and out to sea, mostly sailing in the deepwater channels.

International sailing legend Harold Cudmore was on board as tactician and was as surprised as anyone at the brief ground on soft mud.

"We didn't have a whole lot of harbour to play with and it was interesting, as we were in the shipping channel," he told The Irish Times in Crosshaven last night.

Maximus has a canting, or swinging, keel that requires 5.5 metres of water to avoid touching the bottom.

"There was seven metres depth on the chart plus tide so we must have found a shifting bank," the America's Cup veteran said. "At least we stayed well away from the rocks."

During racing for the IRM, a crew member on board the F45 Audacious received a suspected head injury and was taken ashore on board the yacht.

A co-ordinated operation between the event safety team, Civil Defence and Irish Coastguard Service transferred the casualty to a waiting ambulance in Crosshaven.

The crew member was later discharged from Cork University Hospital.