Skandia Cowes Week - Day 4 Round-Up

by Magnus Wheatley on 2 Aug 2006 Day four of Skandia Cowes Week 2006 dawned with a forecast of strong and blustery south-westerly winds with gusts straining the dial beneath storm clouds producing a lumpy Solent and gusts of up to 29 knots.

Principal Race Officer John Grandy of the Royal Yacht Squadron rightly urged his course setters to adopt a 'safety first' attitude by sending all the classes on the Castle start line to the more sheltered eastern Solent and ensuring their courses were suitably short enough to get all the fleets safely home before the tide turned.

Running starts with the tide, therefore, were the order of the day and provided a fantastic spectacle for the shoreside spectators as the day boats streaked off the start line setting myriad shades of colourful spinnakers for a long first leg down to the Hill Head Shore. However for three classes – the Solent Sunbeams, RS-K6 and Swallows – the conditions were just too tough for the sailors and the class associations decided not to race them whilst in the Seaview Mermaids, a gentleman’s decision saw none of the fleet fly spinnakers.

The first start of the day at 10.05am was a tense affair for the hard-driving Laser SB3 fleet who all clustered at the outer distance Alpha buoy to take best advantage of the fast running west to east flood tide. A few expensive collisions amongst the back markers ensued as some of the less experienced SB3 sailors struggled with their boat-handling but in the main the fleet got away to a much cheered 'all clear' from the line spotters for an energetic jaunt in the central Solent.

One of the big winners from the start, Christina Summerhayes in Team Maclaren, sailed an absolute blinder today and upset the established order in the fleet by recording a beautiful 1 minute 55 second race win from dinghy ace Geoff Carveth’s Small But Steamy. Yesterday’s winner, Price Waterhouse Coopers of Jono and Ben Shelley, held off the challenge of Glenn Bourke’s Musto to secure third spot whilst Russell Peters had his worst result of the regatta so far, finishing in a distant 36th place and proving that even with amazing boatspeed, if you get buried in the SB3 fleet it’s incredibly difficult to recover. Great racing by one of the star attractions of Skandia Cowes Week 2006.

One family that no doubt will be celebrating long into the night will be the husband and wife duo Graham and Julia Bailey who both scored wins in their respective classes of the International Etchells and the International Dragons. Graham Bailey had a real-flyer of a start aboard Arbitrator and took an early jump on the competitive fleet by ignoring the crowding at Alpha and picking up clear wind mid-line. Arbitrator was never headed and sailed through the line with a very healthy 3 minute 39 seconds winning delta – a lifetime in the Etchells fleet!

Meanwhile Julia Bailey sailing Aimee in the Dragons edged out a very hard-fought final beat to just squeak across the finish line off the Skandia Barge 15 seconds ahead. A win’s a win at Skandia Cowes Week and the Bailey’s were the talk of the town for the inshore White Group fleets.

Up in the Western Solent, the handicap fleets of Classes Zero, 1,2,3,4 and 5 all enjoyed a committee boat start line today and experienced blustery conditions on their exposed courses. Volvo Ocean Race winner ABN Amro One was, once again, the star performer in Class Zero as she belted around the course winning on the water by some 53 minutes that converted to nearly 20 minutes on corrected time.

Away from ABN, the big tussle in this fleet is between Charles Dunstone’s Red and Benny Kelly’s Panthera who are both new-generation TP52’s. Today it was Panthera who had the bragging rights, finishing just over 8 minutes ahead of Red whilst Colm Barrington’s beautiful Ker 50, Magic Glove, separated the two on corrected time to finish third.

In Class 1 IRC the big story of the day was that Glynn Williams sailing the Swan 45 Wisc finally brought Professor John Shepherd’s run of three race wins in Fair Do’s VII to an end as he led the fleet home to record a 2 minute 4 second corrected time victory. Fair Do’s VII still remains in a commanding position overall in the fleet after four races but may have to wave goodbye to the overall Black Group prize that is looking destined to go the way of the X332 Fatjax – although there’s still a long way to go!

In Class 2 IRC, today’s conditions firmly favoured the Grand Soleil 43 Roark of Harald Van Santen from the Netherlands who have been steadily improving all regatta, knocking on the winners door taking home the trophies 1 minute 53 seconds ahead of yesterday’s winner and fleet front-runner Marinerscove.ie of David Dwyer.

Class 3 IRC saw a return to form for Paul McNamara’s Incognito with a 47 second win over David Melville’s Jaguar Logic. Harry Evans had another terrific day on Alvine Jacobite in Class 4 IRC, powering away from the fleet to yet another victory with Michael Brough’s Steady Barker offering little resistance over 3 minutes astern on corrected time.

Class 5 IRC again turned into a Winsome beneficiary although Harry Heijst was pushed hard for the top spot all afternoon by David Clementi’s Hotwatch II and John Howell’s aboard Spellbinder.

For classes 6 and 7 IRC back on the Squadron start line it was another running start to the east that tested the navigator’s time on distance judgement but for the brilliant Dean & Dyball Enigma of Ian Braham in Class 6 IRC it was business as usual as they coolly launched their big blue spinnaker just before the gun and cruised away whilst the rest of the fleet looked on in awe. Braham’s crack team pulled away, revelling in the conditions to secure a whopping 8 minute 13 second corrected time victory, their third of the regatta.

In Class 7 IRC it was a day for the quarter-tonners as they surfed away at the start with Paul Treliving’s Odd Job setting the early pace. However after two and a half hours of sailing, the Louise Morton owned Farr 727 Super Q helmed by Liz Rushall and crewed by an all-ladies team were the toast of the class as they recorded a 41 second corrected time victory.

Back in the White Group, the morning wore on with all classes getting away and only minor individual recalls recorded, mainly as competitors mis-judged the tide and struggled to get to the correct side of the line pre-start. A few classes were notably line shy fearing the dreaded OCS such as the Daring fleet who were led away by Jeremy Preston’s Defender before the class experts of Robin Richardson aboard Doublet and Milo Carver sailing Dauntless seized control of the race. Doublet sailed a consistent race in testing conditions to stretch out into an unassailable lead, crossing the finish line 1 minute 10 seconds ahead of Dauntless although a protest may decide the final outcome between the two.

The 1720 crews meanwhile totally revelled in the conditions with their huge asymmetric kites and enjoyed a great blast around the central Solent with Mark Greenaway’s La Licorne scoring his second win of the regatta by a margin of 2 minutes 32 seconds from arch rival Crescendo of James Flynn OBE. Flynn still tops the overall leader board in the 1720’s from Greenaway and it will be fascinating to watch this duel unfold for the rest of the week. In the Hunter 707 fleet, Russell Mead’s The Ant Hill Mob continued their winning streak of yesterday with a very close run 12 second victory from overall class leader Peter Dickson in Star Born 3 who had got away to a flying start, setting their spinnaker first for the long run down to the eastern Solent.

Out on the offshore Black Group starting line, there were some big class wins recorded in the Sigma 38 and X332 fleets with Andy Budgen’s The Project thumping the Sig