Commodores' Cup review

madforsailing spoke to many of the top players about how they felt the race had gone

After an aborted Admiral's Cup last year and some controversy remaining over how well next year's event will be received by the yachting racing community, RORC are breathing a sigh of relief that the Rolex Commodore's Cup that concluded yesterday in Cowes was such a success.

On the plus side the Solent was abnormally sun drenched - it felt decidedly Mediterranean - there were 11 teams and 33 boats including virtually all the top Solent regulars. Shoreside there was a good sponsor in Rolex. On the downside the event was held at springs in very little wind.

"I think it's been an excellent regatta and we're very pleased with the number of countries that have turned up and obviously that's turned into 11 teams," RORC Commodore Peter Rutter told madfor sailing. He added that the event had a good spirit from the moment it kicked off at the opening party.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect to the regatta was its surprise winner in the France Red team comprising Gery Trentesaux and Eric Fries's IMX 40s Courrier Nord and Fastwave 3 and Jean-Yves Le Goff's X-442 Clin D'Oeil. The French trio led from the middle of the week having knocked Peter Harrison's Commonwealth team off the top spot. They finished with 166.25 points over the Dutch team's 206.25 and England Red with 240.75.

While a majority of the 'British' boats were Farr 52s, Ker 11.3s or Corby designs was it purely chance that the French fielded two teams both comprising two IMX40s and one X-442? While the conditions perhaps favoured these boats the very fact that while one French team won, the other came home eighth out of 11 indicates that France Red's win was down to sheer racing ability.

Rutter agrees: "It does show the very frontline racers, particularly the British crews, that there is a way to go to get them up to true international level. But they've now seen the international teams so they can choose whether to go on and take it further or whether they're just happy racing around the Solent at that level.

"You need to have regular international races like this to show what it can be like out there. Gery Trentesaux and his team won because they've worked very hard at it and they are the pinnicle which we should be attaining and I hope the British crews will pick up the challenge."

It should also be remembered that the Commodore's Cup is supposed to be RORC's racer-cruiser regatta, with an obligatory amateur component to the crew and an amateur helmsman for the inshore races. Hence it is raced under IRC rather than IRM but we felt it highlighted some of the more unusual aspects to the ISAF Crew Classification system. For example Stuart Childerley, Olympian, Admiral's Cup helmsman, Etchells World Champion and widely regarded as one of Britain's top people to have at wheel of a race boat, is technically an 'amateur' and did a fine job at the helm of Peter Morton's Mandrake. Similarly on Nick Hewson's Team Tonictheir 'amateur' helmsman was former British match racing champion Ben Vines who has put sailing on the back burner while he pursues a career as a doctor.

Despite these inevitable anomalies the amateur-pro mix of the event was felt by the crews and RORC to have worked well. "I think the mixture of amateurs and professionals is worthwhile because the amateurs can see how the professionals do it and can up their game. If you simply had amateur night at the Odean then everybody wouldn't be upping their game," commented Peter Rutter.

The race programme for the Commodores' Cup was an mixture of windward-leewards in the Solent, a 12 hour race on the Saturday and a 24 hour 'offshore' race on the Wedneday. Team Tonic's Jeremy Robinson, albeit a little weary having competed in Cowes Week immediately before, felt that the schedule was a little too intense at the end of the week. "I thought they pushed it a bit with the offshore race," he said. "They made it so long so some of the small boats weren't in until 6 and then we were back out the next day. So everyone's just knackered on the Friday and off again at 08.30 on the Saturday. I personally would prefer not to sail the Sunday. It's all becoming a bit too much."

The biggest frustations were over the light winds combined with spring tides. Bear of Britain's Mark Campbell-James felt that the powerful tides had made the inshore races "a bit processional" but liked the leeward mark gate where occasionally there was a bias between the marks to take into account the different tidal effects at each. The tidal effect was made worse when the inshore racing was moved to the western Solent where there was better breeze.

Some competitors felt that the occasions when the course was moved to the western Solent in attempt to breeze had created a bigger problem with the tide. "When you race in that part of the Solent it's a nightmare, you start and you've got to hit the beach," said Jeremy Robinson. "There just aren't any passing opportunities. There's just no way back if you mess up the start." He felt that they should have done to Christchurch or Halying Bays.

Rob Greenhalgh, racing with Peter Harrison's son Nick on the Ker 11.3 Natti Vee in the Commonweath team, was more outspoken. "The offshore race was a joke. They shouldn't have even run it. There was never forecast to be any wind and everyone just drifted away and drifted back again. It was poor of RORC to start that and they set a very bad course. There weren't any beats - it was just reaching around. They set it up so there were big tidal gates. If there's a lot of tide you should go across it, not up and down it. So there were tidal gates, people were kedging. I suppose it's just one of the those things, but it seemed to happen quite a lot..."

From the other side of the fence, Peter Rutter defended their corner: "It has been quite difficult setting courses this week with the light weather. In the offshore particularly. Janet Grosvenor and I had eight separate conversations over exactly the finer points of the course." And why was the Commodore's Cup held when there was a spring tide? "It is always a huge problem when you hold something. We book our times with the Solent Racing Assocation. This was the only time we weren't in direct conflict with something. We had to fit in with everyone else."