COMPETITION is always close across many Cowes Week classes, but few can rival the racing on Day 6 of the regatta.

In IRC Class 3, Adam Gosling's JPK 10.80 Yes! and David Franks' J/112e Leon have been match racing each other all week and are only two points apart at the top of the leaderboard after five races.

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Franks won today's (Thursday, August 1) race, just 51 seconds ahead of Yes! on corrected time, while Frank Lang's X40 Optim'x took third.

"We've had a very close battle right through the week with Yes!," says Franks.

"It's nip and tuck all the time — we're match racing for first place.

"Today we both got good starts, with Yes! a bit closer inshore. We got ahead and I was trying to keep him behind, as you do when match racing.

"Adam is an excellent sailor — he was an Etchells world champion and has sailed a lot with Sir Ben Ainslie's Olympic coach.

"Adam got ahead near the last windward mark, so I was following him then, trying to stay as close as possible."

While Yes! took line honours, Leon has a marginally lower rating and won on corrected time. 

Today the faster IRC yachts were competing for the New York Yacht Club Challenge Cup.

For most of the regatta, two TP52 teams — Tony Langley's Gladiator, which won the world championship in Newport, Rhode Island a few weeks ago, and Peter Moreton's Notorious — have dominated competition among the big boats.

However James Murray's Botin 42 Callisto took victory today by a comfortable margin.

Only three boats at the entire regatta scored a straight run of first places across their first four races — namely Rupert Mander and Gareth Edwards' Flying 15 Men Behaving Badly, Seville Developments' First 40 Dusty P, skippered by Richard Patrick, in Performance Cruiser Division B, and Richard Dilley's Grand Soleil 46 Belladonna, in Performance Cruiser Division A.

Both the Victory and XOD classes had earlier starts than usual today, with the former getting away cleanly and the XODs at the second attempt after a general recall.

Roger Yeoman's XOD Xcitation has become consistently faster as the week has progressed and took victory for the first time today v 32 seconds ahead of Penny Fulford's Madeleine, while Andrew and Donna Cooper, and John Boyce's Athena, took third 34 seconds later.

John Tremlett, Tim Copsey and Fraser Graham's Astralita started the regatta posting three consecutive first places, but dropped to 28th.

But they finished sixth today, more than three and a half minutes behind Xcitation.

XODs have a discard after only four races, so Astralita now retains first place overall, but only two points ahead of Richard Faulkner's Swallow, with Xcitation only one point adrift in third place.

Competition for the class's most coveted trophy, the Captain's Cup, is therefore wide open going into the final race, with almost one third of the fleet having a mathematical chance of winning.