CONGRESSIONAL CUP : Cudmore Strikes Again on St. Patrick’s Day
How do you say deja vu in Gaelic?
Nine years ago, Harold Cudmore came from the Royal Cork Yacht Club in Ireland and won the Congressional Cup at Long Beach on St. Patrick’s Day. And the leprechauns were at work again Friday at the end of the event’s first Masters Regatta for former winners.
After they had won their 13th of the week’s 18 races, Cudmore and his internationally mixed crew seemed resigned to finishing in a first-place tie with Henry Sprague III, the 1969 winner who would win the tiebreaker because he had beaten them twice. Sprague appeared to have a commanding lead over Dave Perry in the final race.
But Perry, the 1983 and ’84 winner, caught a puff of wind, pulled alongside Sprague 100 yards from the finish, then jibed and surged ahead to win by a boat length.
“We didn’t take this one,” Cudmore said. “We were given it, and we appreciate it.”
Go beyond the scoreboard
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