Jousting among the bowsprits

Thrills and spills from the sports boat class

Julian Grindall's J/105 J-Go has been unstoppable this week so far. The margin between her and the second boat in the overall Bowsprit class is widening each day on handicap. And it seems that other J/Boats will do just about anything to slow her down.

J-Go's crew went out with yet another Cowes Yacht Haven hangover on Wednesday expecting much lighter winds than the previous day's 25+ knots. The key to winning at Cowes week is to get a good start and J-Go got a perfect running start and flew off at 14 knots down towards the first mark in the eastern Solent.

We caught up with the crews at the Tangent Yachting Bowsprit party last night at the Island Sailing Club and Julian described what happened at the first leeward mark. "The whole fleet had a fast run down to Lucas and a J/92 called J-Fever.com had just gone round and was having trouble hoisting the jib. We were busy dropping the kite so couldn't quite see what was happening but J-Fever was dropping back onto us so we crash tacked to avoid her hitting us but as we went through our bowsprits became locked together. Our two boats were then forced apart by a wave pattern and then crunched back together. J-Fever was then moving forward and her boom was going over our deck and just glanced off the forestay. I thought I was going to lose my head."

Julian contined: " Fortunately there was no real damage to either boat which was remarkable given the incident. I think J-Fever took a penalty and we all got back on track. We didn't lose much time and still went on to win another day".

Robert Shaw's J/120 Jazolo had the honour of having Iain Percy, Finn Gold Medalist at the helm. Jazolo is averaging third place this week and her crew are pleased with their performance as they have only been sailing the boat since March this year. Robert told us how it went: "we were short on crew so I sent our female crew off to drag some extras off the dock and they managed to get Iain Percy to come along with a little help from Skandia Life. He was great, very motivating and never got flustered with tackling the strong breezes. We only suffered one broach but that was really down to a fishing boat in the wrong place at a mark. He said that he'd had a great time and found it a bit more fun than his previous day at the wheel of the maxi Skandia Leopard."

Mervyn Gutteridge and Duncan Money on their J/90 Moose on the Loose also had a superb day's racing. They popped up their small kite for the running start and ran down to the first mark touching 18 knots. "The first downwind leg was wet and wild with only the small kite but the second leg was crazy," recounted Duncan. "We put the big kite up and shot off at 20 knots. It was like the boat was swimming - we had to bear away to see where we were going over the waves and take a deep breath of air before surfing again".

The Moose was a Skandia Life Cowes Week winner in 1998 and is a strong contender for a class win this year. The crew come from Brighton and have sailed together for over six years.

So far this week has proved some thrilling rides for the sports boat classes, who have enjoyed fast surfing downwind legs with some great wipe-out stories to brag about later in the bar.