BURNHAM Week closed with close competition and good weather.

Tony and Chuffy Merewether, and their crew aboard their Jeanneau Sunfast 3200 Amazon, won the 2014 Town Cup, one of Burnham Week’s most celebrated awards.

Following a week of intense racing, in generally challenging conditions, Burnham Week 2014 ended on a good note, in beautiful sunshine and a fresh breeze with gusts that reached 24 knots at times.

The Town Cup, for IRC Class One yachts, always produces closely-fought racing and this year was no exception. With the silver punch bowl up for grabs, the competition was intense.

The committee boat start gave way to a superb spinnaker run with Team Amazon sailing well off the line on the southern shore to take an early lead from Alan Bartlett’s Inn Spirit.

Although the seven-strong team on Inn Spirit, grabbed an immediate opportunity to take the lead as the fleet headed out of the river in a fresh, shifty easterly breeze they were unable to hold off Team Amazon who revelled in the conditions and won on corrected time.

The 29-mile course, which took the fleet as far as Whitaker 4, some ten miles to the east, provided challenging racing throughout and the fleet enjoyed a lively race-long battle in the choppy wind-over-tide conditions.

Tony Merewether said: “Although I have won it five times as crew on other boats, this is the first time we have won the amazing trophy in our own boat, so we are thrilled.

“We had a great race and thankfully we made no mistakes, we spotted all the wind shifts and we were always just saving time on handicap on Inn Spirit all the way round the course.

“Interestingly our topping lift broke just after the start but Simon our bowman fixed it in no time and we were up and running again before anyone noticed. Great crew work all round.”