JERSEY’S only boat in the Melges 24 Ocean BMW European Championships dropped eight places yesterday.

Team-Turn-Turtle.com skippered by Allen Brown ended the day’s series of three races in 25th place out of a fleet of 52.

But Brown and his crew of Gary Birbeck, Tom de la Haye and Bernie Cooper are 13th in the table of amateur crews, well over halfway.

Once more Team-Turn-Turtle had problems at the start line and finished 35th and 34th in yesterday’s first two races but followed this with a 13th in the third.

It comes after a 36th place in one of Tuesday’s races which dragged down their overall placing but was the result subsequently discarded by Brown.

This morning Brown said: ‘It was the same thing as yesterday.

We got tangled up with some other boats at the start line because it was so congested and it’s very difficult to recover from a bad start.

It was a bit disappointing but we’ve had a few problems with our new rig.’ Brown confessed that he and his crew were ‘a bit tired’ after a gruelling eight races in three days.

‘The standard’s incredibly high and three races a day is quite tiring.

‘But we’re hoping we can improve today.

The conditions are fairly light and it’s going to be warm and sunny again.

But generally the breeze has increased during the day.

It would be nice to get a bit more wind but I don’t think it’s forecast.’ Italian boat Joe Fly helmed by Zandona Gabrio leads the fleet with Britain’s Stuart Rix in Gill second and another Italian Andrea Rachelli in Altea third.