Cowes Week 2025 Day 4: Racing women and mini-series winners
by Gael Pawson 5 Aug 12:18 PDT
2-8 August 2025
With three mini-series concluding today, lively winds and brilliant sunshine, there was plenty of action on the fourth day of Cowes Week 2025.
First fleet off from the Squadron line was IRC6 at 1030 followed by the Contessa 32s. The classes starting from the Squadron were all off on time, bunching to start from the pin end before the wet, windy beat to the first mark. Today these included a few of the cruiser classes and smaller IRC boats as well as the small keelboat and one-design classes with just a few individual recalls in some of the keener fleets. The final of the Squadron starts was the XODs, at 1205 who earnt a cheer for their clean start.
As the start sequence progressed, the wind built to around 19 knots, later in the day spectators enjoyed the entertainment of these fleets finishing close inshore on the Squadron line.
Committee Vessel 1 started the larger IRC classes to the east, where they saw around 10-14 knots and shifty conditions. The J/70s and SB20s were on Committee Vessel starts all day for the three races which completed series racing for both classes. The Cape 31s had their own Committee Vessel today, situated to the north-east of East Bramble buoy.
Enjoying their first day of racing due to yesterday's abandonment, the Swallow class couldn't have a better return to Cowes Week. Racing in the slightly more sheltered Osborne Bay, with their own dedicated Committee Vessel they enjoyed close racing in two back-to-back races, the first was won by Olly Shaw's Ptarmigan, with Osprey second. In the second race, Osprey emerged as the winner, with Spectre second to give Osprey a good lead at the end of the day. The Swallows were an impressive sight as they battled downwind, with plenty of place changes and tight, close mark rounding in the shifty conditions. Osprey is being sailed by a young crew, comprising Jack Hartley, Georgina Patterson and Luke Cross.
Series winners
Winner of the Cape 31 Mini Series was Flying Jenny with Bullit second. Flying Jenny, named for skipper Sandy Askew's mum, came into the week as UK national champions and made their mark from day one with three straight firsts on day one. Today was all about turning that into a series win. 'We had a good day, got a second a first and a fourth,' says Sandy. 'It was choppy, we had 15-17 knots, shifty wind, very tricky. It was beautiful sailing and we did what we were supposed to do; got off the line, got to get a few shifts right, get some good mark roundings - it all adds up at the end of the day. The tide and the wind directions around there adds to the trickery and the complexity of the racing, we love it.'
Sandy gives all the credit to her team: 'I'm really grateful to be here. Rob [Greenhalgh] is a legend, he makes it seem all so easy. I'm really lucky to have the added benefit of sailing with most of the same people from regatta to regatta. It's tough, everyone on the team is working hard. One-design sailing is much different... it's much more tough, any mistake you make is hard to come back from and sometimes it seems to snowball... but I've got a fantastic team, they drag me round the race course. I just do what they tell me. There's Rob, and he gets help from Josie [Gliddon], she's fantastic and we've got Hannah Morris, a 49fx sailor on the crew, there's James Foster who's trying to do an Olympic campaign in the Laser...'
The SB20s were also concluding their Grand Slam after a fabulous three days of racing. Winner by a comfortable margin was Nils Razmilovic's Glasgow Kiss, ahead of Absolute Carnage and Betty.
Nils 19-year-old son Nico and daughter Sofia were also racing in the SB20s on Malibu. Nils was sailing with his 21-year-old son Alex and Marcus Tressler. 'It was a classic day at Cowes week,' says Marcus. 'We won all three races - it's a day like today that keeps us coming back to Cowes Week. We were over the far side, we had maybe 8-16 knots throughout the day, relatively short windward leeward races, which was really nice, a really good day. The scoreline doesn't reflect quite how it went, we had a relatively tough first race but managed to pick up a really nice shift up the second beat to get into first, but a good day overall.'
Winner of the J/70 Mini Series was Martin Dent's Jelvis, followed by Cate Muller-Terhune's Casting Couch. These two were neck and neck until today, but it was Jelvis who pulled ahead counting two wins and a second for the day.
Women's Day
Women's Day aims to highlight the achievements of female sailors across the fleets competing in Cowes, and also encourage an extra effort with female participation. While some have been sailing all week, for others it was an excuse to sail with an all-female crew or female helm for the day.
In IRC7 almost half the fleet had female helms today, and many others were sailing with mixed crews. Leading the class is Craig and Emma Dymcock's H Boat Wight Wedding, counting three straight wins. They are sailing with a mixed crew. The Sonata Dick Darstardly has a female helm all week and sailed with an all-female crew today. Skipper Dawn Bee said: 'It's been fun, quite windy, windier than expected. We thought we'd a good start, then there was a call for OCS so we went back, but by the end of second leg we'd caught that up.
'It was a lovely day, there was enough wind, it was heavy but not too heavy. We were doing well, third and fourth, holding that most of the way, and then we went round West Lepe and broached and almost lost a crew over the side. She managed to hold on and one of the others pulled her back on board, but we broke our spinnaker pole. We had a reach then a run, so the girls had the pole down below and they manage to repair and jury rig the spinnaker pole and managed to get home in fifth. So there was a lot of resilience and a good team effort from all the crew.'
Racing off the Committee Vessel 4 start line, IRC4 had three female helms who were battling it out around the course. Sarah Allen was just one of the female skippers in this class, also with an all-female crew on the J/105 Taika. 'We had slightly lighter winds so there were lots of holes and a huge amount of shifts - the shifts were like 30 degrees, so there was lots of tactical tacking and lots of win and lose on that. A tactically interesting race, a long day on the water, we enjoyed it tremendously - champagne sailing and sunshine.
'We're sailing with a great bunch of girls on the boat who are all really good sailors, this is our first season so we're still learning a lot. We've got Susan Glenny who is obviously an excellent offshore sailor and skipper, but we also had a young Tara Scully who's done Nacras and things, but it's her first time on the mainsheet. We had a great little battle with J'ronimo with Libby Greenhalgh helming and another really good all-female crew was Libby Finch on Nightjar, so it was really neck-and-neck in our group.
'It's really nice to see so much support for women's sailing and when we're all working and being mums it's really nice to have a day out on the water and being together and learning.'
Tomorrow
Tomorrow is Youth Day at Cowes Week, so we'll be celebrating the young sailors on the water. The bigger boats will also have their eyes on some special silverware, with the hotly contested Britannia Cup.
The forecast for tomorrow is looking lighter and potentially more variable, so fingers crossed. We could possibly see a postponement in the morning but should see better breeze in the afternoon.