There be Dragons there

Matthew Armstrong reports on the racing off Cowes this weekend

30 Dragons visited Cowes this weekend for the South Coast Championships hosted by the Royal London Yacht Club.

It was clear from the entry list that racing would be on the hot side of spicy, Eric Williams in his new machine was going to be a tough man to beat, Andrew Craig from Ireland having had a good run at the worlds in Tasmania earlier this year would be on the pace, Richard Hoj Jordan having just won the Easter event at Burnham has already proved himself a winner this year, and Julia Bailey has put so much time in on the water recently some think the only thing she can't do is walk on it - fresh from Star sailing in Palma she was bound to be up there.

Local Cowes sailors Peter Nicholson, Chris Caws, Neil Payne and Paul Patenall have all drunk from the cup of victory and were bound to put in a challenge. Visitors in the form of Len Jones, Owen Pay, Mike Hayles, Danny Sinclair, Ian Ratnage and James Mehew are all able to put the results in so with all that taken into account, the winner of this event was going to have to pull something special out of the hat, and I don't mean a rabbit.

The fleet enjoyed three races on Saturday and two races on Sunday, all over windward-leeward courses in the western Solent; the Classic division which as always was a hard fought affair was won by Meteor, a rather lovely 1963 Pederson & Thuesen sailed by Laurance Jacobsen; the 'old ladies' of the fleet race as hard as there more up to date, if not slightly uglier, plastic rivals - always great to see the wooden Dragons on the water.

It was unfortunate that both Supremacy and Temeraire were unable to join the race course on either days; even more upsetting was the absence of Peter Nicholson who had a touch of boat trouble on the first day keeping him off the course - he was able to join us on the second days racing and put in a display one would expect from the seasoned campaigner posting a second and third - Peter managed to prove that you can get good results even if you have Justin Biddle running the middle of the boat.

Sixth overall went to Danny Sinclair, bearing in mind he travelled all the way from Scotland hopefully the overall result and the win in race two will make the journey worth while. in fifth place Mikes Hayles sailing the brand new Kraken with the ever vocal Michael John Gifford and his daughter Melanie Hayles - a good first day wasn't quite matched in day two but a great result for this new boat all the same. In fourth place overall Richard Hoj Jordan with Bully and the Littlelad sailing Chaotic had a consistent event both on the water and in the bar, most importantly however the fact remains that they were the best looking crew on the race course.

In third place Andrew Craig on his brand new boat Chimaera had a cracking weekend posting a 2,10,6,2,1 - a good omen for the new boat and Andrew can head back to the poppy fields of Ireland with his head held high. Second overall and Eric Williams in Ecstatic with his North sails team of Nigel Young and Jamie Lea posted a consistent set of scores in the form of a 1,9,2,4,3 - Eric has been around the Solent for a few years and no doubt, with his new speed machine better things are to come from this team.

And so the title of South Coast Champion for 2003 goes to Julia Bailey sailing Aimee and crewed by a couple of newcomers to racing, Graham Bailey and David Heritage - a superb series of 4,2,1,1 enabled them to win the regatta with a race to spare which is a good job as they will be the first to admit that there race 5 was a bit of a clowns day out. That one race aside, team Aimee sailed the most consistent regatta and ended up deserving winners so to Julia, Graham and H, good effort all round, A +, you can all go straight to the top of the class.

So to conclude a great weekends racing, thanks must go to the Royal London for all there efforts and especially to the race team headed by PRO George Chapman for organising some excellent courses, also thanks to fleet Captain William Daniels for all the effort he has put in to making the weekend a huge success.