Intrepid wins the first day

The Americans display their talent in the 12 metre class

Intrepid was in bad shape and it took two years of restoration before she was put back in the water in 1998. Jack says she sailed well but needed much more work before she became the excellent racing machine that she is now. She was taken back out of the water and was given a new rig. "We had her racing again 18 months ago, getting her ready for the Jubilee. Intrepid is probably faster now than she has ever been."

Jack has got a serious amount of talent onboard. Apart from Reggie he has Scott Perry who was the tactician with Independence in 1977, Tom O'Brian from Courageous and navigator Larry Rosenfeld who recently raced non stop around the world race with Cam Lewis on board the 110ft Catamaran Team Adventure."We have an enormous amount of intellectual talent, albeit that we're a bit over the hill""

Today the 12 metres enjoyed 18 to 20 knots of wind for their windward-leeward courses just off Ryde towards the eastern Solent. Intrepid managed third place in the first race. "We had a bad tactical race. We had great boat speed but we played bad angles downwind and it cost us". Thankfully the second race was a different story.

"We had a great start and were way ahead at the second mark. We were so fast downwind that we had two and a half minutes on Valiant so it was match racing for the rest of the way home". Valiant from 1970 is owned by Robbie Doyle of Doyle Sails but at least he was beaten by a boat with his own brand of cloth on board. Another significant fact from today is that all of the top three boats were designed by the great Olin Stephens, who is also present at the regatta.

Intrepid hope to do well again tomorrow when they go round the Island although with the biggest spring tides in a hundred years and not a great deal of wind forecast it could be a case of the winner being whoever holds out from the boredom.