TP52 Ran dashes to win RORC Cowes to Dieppe Race

by Louay Habib on 27 Aug 2008 Niklas Zennstrom’s turbo charged TP52 RAN, was the first yacht to finish the Cowes to Dieppe Race by a massive margin: it was nearly five hours before the second boat was home. RAN averaged over 10 knots in a rapid crossing of the English Channel.

The margin of victory was aided by the tide turning unfavourably for the rest of the fleet and the breeze dying down after RAN had finished.

Second to cross the line was Michael Boyd & Niall Dowling’s J/105, Slingshot, to take the Two Handed class but Noel Racine’s JPK 9.6, Foggy Dew was only just behind, to beat Slingshot on corrected time for a Class Two win and second overall. Slingshot was third overall. Noel Racine and his crew on Foggy Dew are now 36.6 points ahead of Slingshot for the RORC Season’s Points for IRC 2 and are hot favourites for the Overall Class Two win.

'We had an excellent start for the Dieppe race.' Commented Noel Racine of Foggy Dew. 'We decided to head to the mainland shore and found more wind. We were the second boat into the Channel behind RAN. After that we were able to make a course for Dieppe and there was little opportunity for the boats behind to do anything tactically to catch us. We did have one problem when we lost our spinnaker for several minutes; we got into the wind shadow of a fishing boat but apart from that everything was perfect.'

There was a distinctive Scottish flavour to two winners in the RORC Cowes to Dieppe race as Ian Laing’s Swan 53, Sassenach, was the victor in IRC Class Zero and Gordon Cossar’s Salona 45, Highland Daughter, coming out top in IRC Class One.

Patrick Besancon’s Aphrodite 101, Lais, had an excellent race, winning IRC Class Three and coming in 4th overall. The 10.1 metre boat was originally designed in 1976 for the Round Zeeland Race and the deck lay out was conceived by the legendary sailor, Paul Elvstrom.

With five of the RORC fleet currently racing from Madeira back to Cowes, the stage is set for the final race of the RORC Season; The Cherbourg Race on the 5 September.

COURSES: Trinity House/Cowes Mooring Buoy (S), Snowden (S), Horse Sand Fort (P), Bembridge Ledge (S), Roches d’Ailly North Cardinal Buoy (S) Dieppe. Approximately 100 miles

Organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club in association with the Cercle de la Voile de Dieppe and the Royal Yacht Squadron.