Quarter Ton Cup, Still Crazy After All These Years

by Fiona Brown on 3 Jun 2006 You only have to mention the Quarter Ton Cup to sailors of a certain age and they get that far away look and start mourning the good old days.

Thanks to the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club Cowes their days of mourning are over and they can climb back into their Quarter Tonners and relive those glory years at the Red Funnel Quarter Ton Cup 2006 from Monday 5 to Wednesday 7 June 2006.

Through the winter crews have been busy buying, rebuilding and refitting boats ready for the regatta and 24 crews are expected to come to the line on Monday morning.

Tony Dodd and his reigning Purple Haze crew will be back to defend their title and there are some legendary boats out to give them a run for their money including Tom Bombadil, now owned by Chris Frost and Kevin George; Panic, owned by Charlie Hutton and originally built and part designed by Russell Smith who will be sailing his own boat Zipper.

Peter Morton's Espada; Odd Job, recently repurchased by one of her previous owners Paul Treliving; Catch owned by Darren Marston who so enjoyed sailing aboard Super Q last year that he went out and bought his own boat; and Extension, being sailed this year by former owner Paul Grant, a hovercraft pilot from Ryde;

Among those travelling long distance to take part in the regatta are Alice (the former Fourmates) now owned by Ken Bruneflod from Sweden; Merlin, which is being sailed up from Teignmouth overnight on Saturday by Giles Bowerman and his crew.

Laurent Beaurin and 45 South are coming in from France and Graydon Dawson's Diamond is travelling down from Sunderland. Graydon was so impressed by the beautiful job Peter Morton did on Super Q last year he has spent the winter refitting Diamond and returning her to her original glory.

Alongside the main competition we have some interesting side bets including a husband and wife battle between Peter Morton, sailing Espada, and his wife Louise sailing Super Q. The battle between designers Ed Dubois, sailing his one off design Enigma, and Ron Holland, helming his legendary Manzanita for owners Joxer O'Brien and Neil Kenefick, should also be entertaining to watch.

The Manzanita team will be hoping for better luck at this year's regatta as in 2005 they lost their rig on the first day and were forced to spend the rest of the regatta watching from the bar (not a great hardship to these Irish sailing legends!).

There was always a great sense of camaraderie about the Quarter Ton Class and nothing has changed in the intervening years as Peter Morton found out last week when he realised that time was running out to complete the rebuild of his recently acquired Espada. Just as he thought he would have to admit defeat and sit out this year's event the reigning Quarter Ton Cup holders Tony Dodd and Jim & George Webb of Purple Haze plus Anthony Spillerbean from Super Q came to his rescue and spent last weekend helping to refit Espada's keel so she is now all set to compete.

The regatta's 'Still Crazy After All These Years' motto says it all and competitors are looking forward to three great days of racing and three equally fun nights of partying. Following the success of the inaugural revival event last year racing will again take place under IRC, allowing Quarter Tonners of all eras to compete on a level playing field.

Nine races are scheduled over the three days with day sponsors Casse Tete boat builders, UK Halsey sailmakers and paint company Veneziani supporting overall sponsor Red Funnel.

For further information about the Red Funnel Quarter Ton Cup please contact Louise Morton, Secretary, Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, The Parade, Cowes, Isle of Wight, PO31 7QU, E-mail louise@rcyc.co.uk, Tel 01983 293581 or visit www.rcyc.co.uk.