Largs Regatta Festival Scottish Two Handed Race 2025
by Carolyn Elder 7 Sep 12:36 PDT
30-31 August 2025
Records were broken on this year's Scottish Two Handed Race Round Arran by a spectacular performance by the multihull, Excalibur (Brian Young and Nick Bell) completing the 80 mile course in just over 8.5 hours, knocking almost 3 hours off the previous record.
In a race which has in previous years been dominated by light winds and frustration, the fresh SE breeze got everyone away to a fast start which continued throughout the day and evening bringing the Round Arran fleet home by midnight.
In class 1 (monohulls) Clockwork (Faulds/Gillespie) led the way and roared home followed closely by Sunrise (Scott and Max Chalmers). However it was the Moody 336 Shearwater (Garth Wilson/Craig Hebblewhite), winners of last weekend's Yacht of the Weekend, which claimed the Viking Sword for fastest corrected time on the Round Arran course. For the first time this year Class 1 yachts were fitted with Yellow Brick trackers allowing those at home as well as the race officer to keep track on performances, all yachts finished by midnight to the relief of the race officer, Pete Wright.
On the shorter 40 mile Round Holy Island course conditions were ideal for almost straight line sailing with a fast reach back from Holy Island, through the channel separating the Cumbrae Islands, to the finish off Largs Sailing Club. Fastest boat home and first on corrected time in Class 3 was Infinite Improbability (Sam Dryden and Callum Calder) well ahead of Ian MacDonald and Jeremy Glen's Sunfast 37, Artemis.
In the popular class 4 long standing Fairlie Yacht Club competitor, Craig Anderson with crew Roger Lewis, stole first place on Cool Bandit by a minute from Gambling (Peter Judd and Dom Todd). Despite being the smallest and slowest boat in Class 5 Wavelength (Carolyn Elder and Bob Byers) took the prize from the much larger Moody 46, Moorea, (Dom and Gerry Mackay) who, as brothers, were also awarded the family prize. Best performance by the youngest pair went to Fankle (Fiona and Michael Hughes) with a special award being made to long standing Two Handed competitor, Ian Nicolson, who at 97, took third place in Class 5. All yachts on the Holy Island were finished by 5pm, another record!
The Scottish Two Handed Race is a unique event in the sailing calendar pitting all sizes and speeds of yachts against each other, equalised by having only two people on board. The apres race chat always reveals adventures and errors and brings together unique camaraderie. Many thanks are due to the generous sponsorship from Arran Distillers and Arran Sense of Scotland for their fabulous product prizes and to Coastworks for their support boat throughout.
For full details and results see largsregattafestival.com