A hopeful wait for a sea breeze to become established rewarded competitors in the classes scheduled to start from the Black Group committee boat with some first-class racing. However, for others the long wait was not so fruitful – despite promising indicators, the sea breeze failed to reach the central Solent until too late in the afternoon yesterday (Thursday) for race officials to be able to start racing from the Royal Yacht Squadron and Bramble lines.
The classes starting from the Black Group committee boat, stationed near Lymington, were given windward-leeward courses, with the big boats racing to marks in the Needles Channel, which benefitted from a stronger breeze than the waters inside Hurst Spit. In IRC Class 2 Adam Gosling’s Corby 36 Yes! crossed the finish line six minutes ahead of Jim Macgregor’s Elan 410 Premier Flair to take his fifth win of the week.
Navigator James Day said:
“We started in 8 knots of wind, which built to a steady 10-12 knots, giving us really, really nice sailing conditions
“It wasn’t hard work, but we were all fully powered up to windward.
“We had a pretty good start, but [Andrew Irvine’s First 40] La Reponse crossed ahead on the first beat. We then had a tacking duel with them, short tacking against the tide past Yarmouth Pier and got ahead. Then they sailed into the exclusion zone in the moorings off Yarmouth harbour and had to retire, so we could sail a safe race after that. We could see the sea breeze was not extending towards Cowes, so it was a good call from the course setters to finish us in the western Solent. It’s been a fantastic week as a whole for us so far, but now we’re really focussed on securing the overall Black Group win tomorrow…”
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In the First 40.7 class Paul McNamara and Tony Lowe’s Incognito won yesterday’s race by a margin of almost three and a half minutes over Nick Rawbone’s Playing Around, with Pete Newlands’ Anticipation finishing third two minutes later.
McNamara said:
“It was a great race today.
“We didn’t expect the wind to fill in, but it was good that it did. We had to work very hard for the win, with Anticipation getting a strong start and Playing Around also having an excellent first beat.
“We have been doing Cowes Week for 12 years with the same group of family and friends, but this is the first time we have managed to go into the final day having already secured the series. There will be big celebrations tonight and we will be out there tomorrow for a great final day.”
IRC Class 0 saw Irvine Laidlaw’s Reichel Pugh 52 Cape Fling ll finish with a big lead on the water ahead of Michael Barthlomew’s GP42 Tokoloshe ll and Piet Vroon’s Ker 46 Tonnerre de Breskens 3. The latter two boats had a tight fight on their final beat, with Tonnerre crossing the line two seconds ahead of Tokoloshe, but the latter’s lower rating saw her gain a 46 second advantage on corrected time. Cape Fling ll was able to save her time on the two smaller boats, but Richard Rankin’s 12-Metre won the race on corrected time to take her second win of the week.
The Artemis Challenge also got underway successfully, starting on schedule at 1000. An hour later this fleet was slowly passing Yarmouth in the dying throes of the overnight north north-westerly breeze. By this time the wind had already reversed direction at Hurst Castle and by 1130 the fleet was hooking into the early sea breeze here, which built over the next few minutes to a consistent 6-9 knots from just west of south, with competitors accelerating to double digit speeds over the ground as they approached the Needles at the western end of the Isle of Wight.
Their course was eventually shortened at Bembridge, three-quarters of their way around their circumnavigation of the Island. Lionel Lemonchois’ trimaran Prince de Bretagne took first place ahead of the MOD70 trimaran Oman Sail – Musandam. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing’s Volvo Ocean 65 Azzam was the first monohull across the line, beating the two other VO65s and the IMOCA 60 Artemis Ocean Racing ll.
There was also a shorter race in the Solent yesterday for the Artemis Offshore Academy’s fleet of Figaro lls. Rich Mason’s Artemis Figaro 77 took a commanding lead to finish almost 10 minutes ahead of GAC Pindar. However, the fight for second and third places was much closer, with Sam Matson’s Artemis Figaro 21 finishing just 68 seconds later in third place.
Yesterday also saw the presentation of this year’s winner of the Ladies’ Day trophy, which is awarded in recognition of an outstanding contribution, commitment, or achievement of a woman in sailing. This year’s winner, Dee Caffari, is one of the world’s most successful offshore sailors, with a string of racing successes and round the world records to her name, and is about to set off on her fifth circumnavigation as a member of the all-women Team SCA in the Volvo Ocean Race.
Report by Rupert Holmes / CWL
Photograph thanks to Graham Reading Photography
