Ramsgate Week 2026 at Royal Temple Yacht Club - Corporation Gold Cup day
by Peter Jackson 26 Jul 03:54 PDT
19-24 July 2026
The early start was delayed as the forecast drop and veer gave unstable strength and direction. The tide was also due to turn to run south.
After half an hour of sunshine but near flat calm the air started to move, so Race officers Peter Schofield and assistants Chris and Steve moved the committee boat and got the starts away. YTC classes 4-6 were followed by IRC 1 & 2 for the Gold Cup, all on the same course, a beat to Broadstairs Knoll then run back before a leg out to the Gull Stream buoy in case the wind clocked right, before finishing at East Brake. The smaller and non-spinnaker classes again raced shorter courses off the Royal Temple YC club line inshore.
Assassin had an unassailable lead in IRC but Peter Jackson wanted one more Gold Cup win to match Richard Matthews seven. At the head of the YTC fleet Mike & Jo Brand's X40 Fox out the Box was joined approaching mark 1 for the run back south by the Dufour 36 Loki, still 2 handed, who had found more wind offshore. Loki rounded first and took a port gybe back out to sea, while the X40 struggled to get their asymmetric kite out of it's sock and gybed off inshore. The J97 Jura rounded 3rd in class but behind the lead IRC boat Assassin. who had nailed the start and also stayed offshore to hold her time in IRC at Broadstairs Knoll.
But the wind offshore died away. First Loki then Assassin found the doldrums as the little wind there was headed them, precluding a gybe. Simon Northrop in the Melges 24 Lock Stock spotted the lack of wind offshore and gybed to follow Mike Brand in the X40 inshore. Then the wind, still patchy and unstable, filled in inshore giving the X40 and Melges, now both gybed onto port, a fast close reach for the 3 miles down tide towards Deal for the next mark. The wind also filled in from behind, bringing the rest of the fleet past Loki and up to Assassin. Loki never did get the wind. The 42, with only symmetrical kites picked up a little but well ahead of the beam. However the Melges with her big Assy had long gone through and away to leeward by then, rounding half a mile ahead behind the YTC leader. It was certainly a perfect leg for Asymmetric kites as the J97 flew back up in the head of the pack and rounded the leeward mark just behind Assassin. Both Archambault's, Warrior and Aztec, also made time.
The two mile leg to the Gull Stream buoy, on the inshore side of the Gull Steam channel inside the Goodwin sands, was a beat, with starboard tack lee bowing the south going tide. The X40 and Melges headed off on starboard but Assassin held on to port in the shallower water to lee bow in the stronger tide. On tacking she also found more & lifted wind and reclaimed the lead by 6 minutes. With the breeze still unstable the race was shortened after 2 hrs at Gull stream.
The X40 crossed 7 minutes behind the 42 and first in YTC, but Jura had followed Assassin and closed up to finish just 1 minute behind, 8 minutes ahead on handicap from the Fox, followed by Zephyros and a close finish between Carpe Diem and Bad Boys with David Preston's Rye Harbour based First Class 8 Luna in 6th, correcting just 10 seconds ahead of stablemate Roxanne, Richard Elliott's Sunshine 38.
In IRC for the Gold Cup, Assassin clawed back 12 minutes on the final leg to finish 6 minutes ahead of Simon Northrop & Paul Thomas's Lock Stock, but the Melges had 11 minutes in hand so took the Cup comfortably from the A31 Aztec, 40ft sister Warrior, and Peter Pearson et al's HOD 35 Buccaneer 3rd in class 2. Then the X36 Stiletto, X99 Xpedite and Cork 1720 Flying Pig all corrected within a few seconds ahead of the Corby 33 Imposter and the Pronavia 42, Warrior took Class 1 from Imposter.
On the Inshore course John Barnards Limbo 6.6 LoFlyer from Greenwich took the Class 6 YTC win from the local Lucas-Nicholson modified E boat Zigge. Monarch dropped to her lowest finish of 3rd in the light & flukey winds. In Non-spinnaker class 7 Bernard Sealy returned to the front in his Astrillious 38 Karibia Breezes out of Dover. Susan Anderson, RTYC and ex Margate YC commodore in her Gibsea 262 Impulse returned to 2nd, from Mark Andrews & Jonathan Hague's 43ft Avventura.