Round One

Steve Sleight reports on the first weekend of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Series

Weekend 1, 23-24 April

Four classes, Etchells, Darings, Dragons and Sonars, turned out for the first weekend of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Series with four races over the two days (23-24 April) run by the Island Sailing Club. This series for the main classes of day keelboats raced from Cowes stages 24 races over six weekends during the season. The future of the popular series seems assured now that Red Funnel have confirmed their on-going support.

For the first day of racing on Saturday (23 April) the early southeasterly of 12-15 knots died by midday leaving the Solent with a mirror calm and a spring ebb, forcing a postponement, and keeping the fleets ashore. By 1220 a light southeasterly breeze started to ruffle the surface and Chief Race Officer Malcolm McKeag lowered one of the APs, to call the fleets of Etchells, Dragons, Darings, and Sonars to the race course.

The start line was set just west of Seascope and the first start, for the Etchells, got away at 1340 in 12 knots of wind from 105 degrees, a strong ebb and visibility of about a mile.

The windward leeward course comprised a start and finish line a quarter of the way up the beat from the leeward mark. A three-quarter mile beat from the start was followed by a 100 yard reach to the spreader mark, a mile run to the leeward mark and a quarter of a mile beat back to the committee boat, with two laps signalled.

All classes enjoyed close racing except for the Sonars where the only two starters got fairly well separated. Perhaps because the shore was obscured in the murk and couldn’t be used to get a transit on the marks, just about everyone underestimated the tidal stream on the run and there were some last-minute scrambles, pole hard on the forestay, to get across to the mark without being swept past it. Those that got it right made good gains and it clearly paid to approach the leeward mark on port gybe, rather than on starboard and having to gybe round the mark.
 
The race officer shortened the Sonars at their leeward mark, and got them away on their second race while still finishing the Etchells on the other side of the committee boat.

The tide slackened off and for a short time visibility closed to half a mile, but it cleared sufficiently to get the second starting sequence underway without a delay. The tide had turned, and committee boat swung, by the time the Dragons started, so this time the beats were with the stream.

Sunday brought little wind and, for short periods, no wind at all. What wind there was, never more than 5-6 knots, shifted by up to 100 degrees in between a north-east and south-east direction. Wind with tide made for long beats and short runs.

One competitor described the racing accurately as “snakes and ladders”, the snakes being long and the ladders short.

In the Etchells, Stuart Childerely sailing Bedrock stamped his authority on the group in both races on the first day by making excellent starts and taking control immediately, but lost out on Sunday when a fifth and DNF dropped him to second for the weekend behind the more consistent Bushfir e.

In the Darings Brian and Pam Saffery-Cooper’s Decanter scored a first, second, third, and fourth to take top spot after four races, two points ahead of Dynamite and two more ahead of Audax, who had a more topsy-turvy set of results with a first, third and two fifths. Sunday’s races belonged to Dreamer, however, which scored two wins to open her series, having not raced on the Saturday.

The Dragon class saw the brand new 702 take the weekend honours ahead of Virago and Ecstatic, with these three boats sharing the line honours in the four races among themselves.

Results: (top three)

Saturday
Race 1
International Etchells
1. Bedrock
2. Bushfire
3. El Torro

Daring
1. Decanter
2. Dynamite
3. Defiant

International Dragon
1. Virago
2. Excalibur
3. Aimee

International Sonar
1. Geronimo
2. Fiscal
3. –

Race 2
International Etchells
1. Bedrock
2. Enda Lima Shamba
3. Bushfire

Daring
1. Audax
2. Defiant
3. Decanter

International Dragon
1. 702
2. Excalibur
3. Aimee

International Sonar
1. Geronimo
2. –
3. –

Sunday
Race 3
International Etchells
1. Enda Lima Shamba
2. Bushfire
3. El Torro

Daring
1. Dreamer
2. Dynamite
3. Audax

International Dragon
1. Virago
2. Aimee
3. Jerboa

International Sonar
1. Geronimo
2. Billy
3. –

Race 4
International Etchells
1. Bushfire
2. El Torro
3. Extravaganza

Daring
1. Dreamer
2. Decanter
3. Dynamite

International Dragon
1. Ecstatic
2. Stampede
3.= 702
Excalibur

International Sonar
No race