Admirals Cup: Day 4 - Inshore Racing comes to a very Solent conclusion
by Richard Gladwell in Cowes 24 Jul 15:21 PDT
Caro - AC1 - Admirals' Cup - Day 4 - Inshore Racing - July 24, 2025 © Richard Gladwell - Sail-World.com/nz
Today marked the End of the Beginning of the 2025 Admirals' Cup with the conclusion of Inshore racing on what is known as the "Central Solent" - the patch of water that separates the Isle of Wight from England.
Originally it was planned to sail three races on Christchurch Bay - a mere couple of hours of motoring from where the 30 boat fleet are docked in Cowes Yacht Haven, and of course - a couple of hours on the return. The lack of enthusiasm amongst the sailors was palpable.
So it was with some relief that last night when it was announced that the race area would move back to Solent Central.
Today the Solent was being the Solent yet again, with race officials setting a course, only to have a big shift in the breeze come through at 1100hrs, and once again the red and white postponement signal was hoisted, after which the race committee led the fleet out into the eastern Solent looking for a better and more stable breeze.
They found it, but there were some massive swings - aptly demonstrated by the New Zealand 50fter Caro.
The 2023 Fastnet winner got a terrible start, in the first race of the day. They had no option but to tack onto port and go to the right hand side of the course, discovering the Mother of all Shifts. It took them from being close to last, to first by a big margin, which they defended all the way around the course, being caught at the end of Leg 8 when the course for the two hour race was shortened from the planned 16 legs and the race finished.
There followed another verse or two from the Solent songbook - light but sailable winds, grey overcast skies, windshifts aplenty, flat water, and astonishingly little tide.
It made for great racing, often with one or two boats enjoying a handy lead, but in the peleton it was fierce competition - what you'd expect from a top one design fleet, rather than boats designed to a rating rule. There were a few calls of protest, but generally the rule observance was good and for all the foibles of the conditions it was excellent boat on boat racing in the best traditions of the Admirals' Cup.
The crew of the Baltic team's 52fter Rán has lodged an interesting redress claim with the Race Committee, for putting the start line in a position where the TP52 ran aground on a sandbank while doing her pre-start run.
"Approaching the start line on starboard in Race 7, Rán ran aground 120 meters from the start line in the final approach to the start. We hit so hard that people fell on the floor. The grounding badly affected our start and our overall performance as we have suspected damage to our bulb. We sailed well under targets in Race 7", says the yet to be heard claim.
This event is a team race - organised between clubs, more for the sake of expediency to make the revived event happen. One of the factors that is conveniently overlooked is that the crews comprise the top professionals in sailing, regardless of whether they are nationals of a particular team. That certainly showed today in quality of the racing. It was top shelf.
As has been the case all week, the contest for top boat in the 40fters (AC2) and 50fters (AC1) is intense.
In the 40fters Callisto (NZL) now shares top spot with Hong Kong's Beau Ideal with both on 17pts. In the 50fters, 1pt separates three boats with Django (ITA) on 18pts and Jolt3 (MON) and Beau Geste (HKG) both on 19pts.
The overall teams points situation is more complicated, necessitating a trip back to the Media Centre for a "please explain".
Looking at the Team Scores (which is what the Admirals' Cup is all about), Hong Kong now enjoys an 8pt lead over Monaco with Italy 3rd and New Zealand 4th overall.
The complexity in the scoring system (see link above) lies in the pink bits - which refer to the discard scores. At the first level of the points table display, some teams have a pink block in one of their race results, and others have none.
The explanation is that all boats have been allowed a discard score - only on the three days of Inshore Racing. Some teams, like New Zealand, have elected to drop the same race - Race 6 - where Caro finished 11th overall and Callisto recorded their second 8th place.
Drilling down to the individual race placings in each class, we are assured that each boat has dropped their worst (Inshore Race) score and that these have been accounted for in the Team Placings.
The 100th anniversary of the Fastnet Race gets underway on Saturday, with fresh conditions forecast for the start, easing away to lighter conditions on Sunday, and then picking back up on Monday.
It will be the final and deciding race of the Admirals Cup, and scores triple points.
After each Fastnet Race, the race is usually categorised as being either a "big boat" or "small boat" event. A long running, light airs Fastnet, will usually work the way of the lower rating boats, while a shorter, heavy air Fastnet will be a big boat benefit.
Of course, the horror show for the small boats, is for the big boats to finish in a fresh breeze, and then for the breeze to die leaving the 40fters out of contention. The opposite - light airs for the big boats - while the minimum fly home in a gale, is the big boats' Fastnet nightmare.
In previous Admirals' Cup - where there were three boats in a team - this big boat vs small boat conundrum was quite an issue, as a team that was loaded with boats at the higher end of the rating band could win/suffer according to the vagaries of the breeze.
However in this revived Admirals's Cup, there is one big boat (50fter) and one small boat (40fter), and team composition is not such an issue. However as we saw in today's inshore racing it is more than possible for a 40fter to get amongst the 50fters - and provide an upset.
Regardless, of the nuances of team composition, the Fastnet Race and Admirals' Cup will, as always, hang on the performance of the lower placed boat in each team, rather than the brillance of the winning boat. One boat alone cannot win the Admirals' Cup -it is a teams event and that is the fascination of this the unofficial world championship of offshore racing.
Tracking: Track the fleet via TracTrac
Live results here
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