J105 at Skandia Cowes Week

by Class media on 1 Aug 2006 Saturday 29 July saw the first race of the 180th Skandia Cowes Week and the J105s were racing within the JSprit Class. With ten boats entered, there were unfortunately only eight on the water.

J-Dream (David & Kirsty Apthorp) had a great start and led the fleet to the windward mark, Motherbank, closely followed by Jet(John & James Owen) and then Voador (Carolyn Curwen) who were split from the fleet by MV Mol. After a good downwind leg J-Dream lost her lead on the second upwind leg to Jet, with a course which then took the Class from the island to the mainland side, and there was a lot of changing places between J-Dream and Voador.

With an upwind leg to North Sturbridge, Jet took out more distance whilst Voador and J-Dream continued their battle. On the next downwind leg, with an ever increasing wind to 24 knots J-Dream exploded their old fractional spinnaker on the tight reach. J-Dream’s international crew for the week saw visiting San Francisco yachtsman bowman Dave Cranston, from USA Fleet 1 having to do a quick rescue of the old spinnaker to re-hoist the heavy weather spinnaker, and J-Dream regained 2nd place.

A long leg to CraftInsure.com saw Jet try to hold their spinnaker, but with a 30 degree wind shift the leg turned into a long beat, and J-Dream benefited from the early spinnaker drop.

A final beat to Peel Bank and then a short spinnaker reach to North Ryde Middle saw J-Dream with a great enough lead to cross in front of the ship whilst the rest of the fleet had to alter course. The oscillating wind on the final 2-sail reach to Beta saw the fleet start to converge and Voador snatched 2nd place.

Results:
1st J-Dream – David & Kirsty Apthorp
2nd Voador – Simon & Jane Curwen
3rd Jet – John & James Owen

Day 2:

The J105s saw a race for some 5 hours on Sunday 30 July in the 2nd race of Skandia Cowes Week. With a Royal Yacht Squadron start and a strong easterly tide, the fleet headed off to 'Laid Mark A'.

J-Dream (David & KirstyApthorp) had a good start but lost their lead early on to Jet. At the first leeward mark Jet (James & John Owen) were chased by J-Dream with Panther (Andrew Tristram) hot on their heels, closely followed by Bojangles (Derek Copeman).

A short beat saw J-Dream regain the 1st place but with poor navigation/tactics and the wrong spinnaker choice, the fleet closed up, with J-Dream managing to just hold off Panther after the gybe and reach to Champagne Mumm. A long beat to Lymington Bank saw J-Dream and Panther extend their lead of the Class only to lose out again to Jet after some interesting spinnaker handling! During the final beat J-Dream passed Jet (once again) and hoisted the spinnaker for the run to the finish, only to find they had to navigate swimmers off the beach of Cowes. Humans can swim quickly when they have to!! Jet with superior boathandling and navigation beat J-Dream by 59seconds to 1st place.

Results:
1st Jet – John & James Owen
2nd J-Dream – David & Kirsty Apthorp
3rd Panther – Andrew Tristram