Alec Cutler and the crew of Hedgehog secured an impressive top-ten showing during yesterday’s Quantum Key West Race Week finale in Florida.

The local entry started the twelfth and final race tenth in the 38-boat J70 fleet and managed to climb one spot on the leaderboard after crossing the line in seventh — their eighth top-ten showing in the regatta.

Cutler’s crew included Olympic gold medal-winner and five-times world champion Nathan Wilmot, of Australia, and Mackenzie Cooper, the Team BDA Red Bull Youth America’s Cup sailor.

Wilmot was the team’s tactician while Cooper, who was making his first appearance in the J70 and also sailing with Cutler for the first time, served as bowman.

American entry New England Ropes, helmed by skipper Tim Healy, won the regatta by an 11-point margin over nearest rival New Wave which also flew the American flag.

Healy has won a plethora of major titles in the J24 class as well as multiple national and North American titles in other classes, including the J70.

The American skipper and Pan American Games gold medal-winner was a three-times All-American Sailor at St Mary’s College in Maryland, the same school Cooper attends.

Rounding off the podium in the J70 fleet was Italian entry, Calvi Network, helmed by skipper Carlo Alberini.

n The America’s Cup Race Management is on the island to conduct a “formal-informal” practice race period in the Great Sound involving the four teams already based here.

Iain Murray, the regatta director and former America’s Cup sailor, has returned for another scouting mission to learn more about the sailing venue and the weather and conduct racing which offers the teams an opportunity to line up against each other.