Red Funnel keelboats

Mary McBride reports on this weekend's racing

Darings made up the largest fleet racing in the second of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship series at the weekend, with 15 Darings out on Sunday making
up almost half of the total boats racing.

All racing was cancelled at noon on Saturday due to lack of wind but the Royal Yacht Squadron race officers, whose turn it was to run things, got in two races for the Darings, Dragons and Etchells on Sunday with a committee boat start between Hill Head and
Seascope.

Tim Street, chief race officer for the RYS, surprised yachtsmen with his decision to start racing to schedule on Sunday, as the day had dawned with little promise of wind. But the light westerly wind he found over the Bramble Bank came good and filled in, building to a Force 3 which gave excellent racing in glorious weather when the sun came out.

In the Daring fleet Dauntless’s crew backed a hunch of their own and decided to stay right while Destroyer, Devius and Darling chose the left and Audax sailed up the middle, managing to pick up a place or two on small shifts. At the top of the beat, Destroyer and Audax led ahead of Devius and Darling. On the run, Dauntless again chose the right while Destroyer and Devius sailed down the middle.

On the next beat nearly every boat chose the right, with Audax still in the lead and Dauntless overtaking Destroyer near the windward mark.

After rounding in the lead, Audax failed to hoist a spinnaker, allowing Dauntless to take the lead and leaving Audax and Destroyer virtually even at the leeward mark. Dauntless sailed on to win but Destroyer made a better leeward rounding and covered Audax to
take second place with Audax in third.

A nice sea breeze settled in for the start of the second race. Dauntless, Loup Garou VIII and Audax established comfortable or at least defendable leads over the following boats. Diamond, laying in eighth, tacked off to the left to find the favourable current. As Dauntless finished first, Diamond came in from the left to take second, comfortably overtaking nearly half the fleet. Loup Garou VIII finished third.

Results

No racing Saturday

Sunday:
Darings Race 1
1 Dauntless (Peckham, Porter and Carver)
2 Destroyer (Hardy, Leask and Mathews)
3 Audax (Bilbo and Haines).

Race 2
1 Dauntless,
2 Diamond (A. Miller)
3 Loup Garou VIII (Clark, Stratton and Preston).

Dragons:
Race 1
1 Rackham ( R. Gray)
2 1087,
3 Stampede ((Payne, Mortimer, Richardson and Ross).

Race 2
1 Stampede,
2 Jerboa IV (Wilkinson-Cox and Vass),
3 Chaotic ( G. Jordan).

Etchells:
Race 1
1 Bushfire (Jervis Tilly)
2 Icing on the Cake (G. Skinner)
3 GBR 1075.

Race 2
1 GBR 1075
2 Icing on the Cake
3 Bushfire.