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12-Metre beats big class at Cowes Classics
Cowes Classics got off to a majestic start as the big boats returned to the Isle of Wight for the first time since the America's Cup Jubilee to augment the British Classic Yacht Club's already large annual regatta fleet. But first home in the historic Round the Island Race was 12-Metre Wings.
Cowes may be the centre of yachting in the UK, but it's by no means the centre of the classic boating world; in our sphere the Med rules supreme. But the BCYC is doing it's utmost to put some beauty back into Solent yachting and perhaps give the big classics more to think about than the facile Mediterranean tidal systems and predictable weather.
Some of the best sailing weather of the summer took the 45-strong fleet on the historic eastabout course, as per America's first race. With a stiff breeze from the north-west and bright sunshine, it was not until well after Bembridge that the later starting big boats caught and swept past the small-boat fleet. But if being overtaken is ever to be relished, it will be when it is performed by such grace as the likes of The Lady Anne, Mariette and Tuiga.
The decision to hold the Round the Island at the outset of a week-long regatta seems a bit of a punt by the BCYC: for the average boat, it's a long, tiring race - 60-miles with perhaps 7 knots of boat speed amid some godawful tidal conditions that are guaranteed to be against somewhere - but no-one wants to miss it even though for the week to come it will have taken a lot out of boats and crew. As it was, they got away with it, and the nigh-on perfect conditions - the wind remained constant all day and tide turned favourable at The Needles after 20.00, sweeping most stragglers into Cowes before closing time and the 21.00 cut-off - most boats returned in timely fashion and intact... if only just.
The owner and crew of Lion class Leonie were given a nasty scare by riding onto on the rocks in front of the fort at Hurst Narrows when trying to avoid the worst of the heavy tidal outflow. She valiantly attempted to sail herself off, but with her boot-top showing alarmingly broad to the passing fleet, eventually she accepted a tow from two passing RIBs and was recovered.
Though the finish was marred by the imposition of a gate so small that Mariette and The Lady Anne would have struggled to sail through it side by side, causing many boats to miss it altogether, or to have to bleed hard earned time by returning to, the race produced the spectacle that many think Cowes deserves.
First over the line, shortly after 1700hrs, was the 12-Metre Wings, racing in Class 2, with Mariette, Mariquita and The Lady Anne all closely grouped, several minutes behind. Due to the late finish for some boats, final results will be published later today (Tuesday).
Martin Smith
Photo: Tuiga passing the Needles by Nicky Aigner
Classic Boat, 22 July 2008
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