Coppet Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club

Coppets Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club © David Plester, Andrea Plester, Neil Hutson

Coppets Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club © David Plester, Andrea Plester, Neil Hutson

Coppets Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club © David Plester, Andrea Plester, Neil Hutson

After one of the longest stretches of Spring sunshine in West Wales for a long time the opening Sunday of Saundersfoot Sailing Club's Coppet Week Regatta saw a noticeable change in the weather.

After a course inspection by the Race Officer David Plester and Event Safety Officer Tom Eyre it was decided to postpone the first day's racing. The wind was gusting 25 knots, West-North -Westerlies. It wasn't all bad news for the racers with some fantastic spot prices on each day's tallies.

The club house team was also warming up the week's social events by opening the bar and offering a fantastic location to eat your takeouts.

Monday saw a small improvement in the weather, enough to run a couple of races, including the RNLI Pennant race. The forecast was still for some gusty wind developing during the day, which proved to be correct.

Race 1

The race started with a good showing of over 40 boats braving the fresh conditions. Shortly after the starting gun a squall came blasting through the fleet with some very strong gusts causing a bit of carnage across the triangular course with several boats capsizing and a few reported equipment failures, which resulted in about 10 boats retiring.

The remaining boats experienced some exhilarating racing, The Osprey fleet looked like they were able to handle the condition the best. Carpe Diem was picking up from last year's winning streak by winning the first race.

Race 2

The squally conditions subsided enough for a second race to be held back-to-back with Race 1. The wind was still blowing strong westerly, and a slightly reduced fleet due to early retirements saw a fleet of about 30 boats brave the conditions.

As forecast the wind was increasing during the day, which took a noticeable victim in the form of a de-masting on the leading Osprey, Carpe Diem.

Tuesday - The forecast for Tuesday didn't look promising, gusting 36kts westerlies - was this summer over already? Unfortunately, the racing was cancelled, maybe a few aching muscles sighed a breath of relief.

Another small break in the weather on Wednesday enabled a couple more races for the series. The wind was still fresh, but the sun was trying to make an appearance.

Coppets Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club - photo © David Plester, Andrea Plester, Neil Hutson

Race 3

Some good hard racing commenced with the wind veering around the nearby headlands making for some gusty and variable wind. Great effort from Sam McKay and James Vyse in their Kestrel, outpacing the Ospreys and Merlin Rockets on the triangular course.

Race 4

The course was expertly reconfigured to a Trapezoid between races 3 and 4. Conditions were similar to Race 3, but now most of the spinnaker boats were committed to two two-sail reaches and a run downwind. There were good battles going on throughout the fleet, with Dan Jackson and Matt Goldwait coming out on top with a tie for second place between the Osprey of Oscar Chess with guest crew Maurice Clarke and Ben Dancer in the Phantom.

Coppets Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club - photo © David Plester, Andrea Plester, Neil Hutson

This left Dan Jackson and Matt Goldwait in their Osprey as worthy Coppet Week 2025 champions.

On Thursday racing was again cancelled due to strong winds and a large swell, concluded the series racing for the week.

As is tradition, the final race of the week on Friday was the pursuit race. The sailing conditions were much more favourable. This was won by Sam McKay and James Vyse in their Kestrel, followed by the D Zero of Finlay Watson.

Coppets Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club - photo © David Plester, Andrea Plester, Neil Hutson

Congratulations to all the winners and also all who participated, the gusty conditions delivered some great, albeit challenging racing. Some great stories were told, and there will be some busy boat bimbling and fixing over the next few weeks.

Just a few well deserved shout outs:

Thank you to our local sponsors, Kookaba, Philly's Sea and Steam (sauna), Sip and Sea and Salty Spaniel who supplied spot prizes from the Tallies lottery.

Thanks also to Saundersfoot harbour for accommodating a fleet of over 50 boats, trailers, and lost travellers. Thanks for your support to host these events, especially when the village is so busy during the holidays.

Thanks to Tenby Sailing Club for assisting with safety boats and crew, much appreciated.

Lastly, but by no means least, a massive thanks to all the volunteers who make Coppet Week such a fantastic regatta. Thanks to all the crews out on the water, it was a busy week in challenging weather conditions, The committee boat and rescue boat teams both did an amazing job at keeping everyone safe whilst enabling some fantastic racing. Thanks also to the land crew for organising the racing and putting on some great evening entertainment.

Look forward to welcoming you all next year, and have a great sailing season.

Coppets Week Regatta 2025 at Saundersfoot Sailing Club - photo © David Plester, Andrea Plester, Neil Hutson

Overall Results:

Prize Winners: