Cowes, UK - 14 June
2010 -
With
a record 35 teams competing the opening day of the 2010 Coutts Quarter Ton Cup,
hosted by the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Cowes, brought thrills, spills, a
spot of giant killing and two close races. Just four points now separate the top four teams. The Joubert Nivelt designed Whiskers,
helmed by Ian Southworth and crewed by John Santy, Lincoln Redding, Nigel Smith
and Mike Kite, is leading the regatta overall on six points, one point ahead of
Howard Sellars and Mike Till's Bullet, crewed by Henry Bagnall, Roshan Vurgose
and George Wavell. In third place
on eight points is Cote, the newly restored 1990 Gonzalez design owned by
Darren Marston and Olly Ophaus, with Darren on the helm, Olly on the bow and
crew members David Lenz, Rob Dyer and Chris Cooper, while in fourth place is
Peter Morton's Farr designed Anchor Challenge crewed by Kelvin Rawlings, John
Newnham, Jason Carrington and Stuart Childerley.
Speaking
after racing John Santy, trimmer aboard overall leader Whiskers commented, "It
was fantastic, the racing was really full on. It was nip and tuck all the way round. There were some great boats out there
so for us to be there in our 31 year old ship we're pretty pleased. We got off the line really well and
hung in there with our lanes and managed to keep on the up elevator rather than
the down. We've still got a lot to
learn but to be leading overall today is fantastic."
It
was a very tough day even by Solent standards with a shifty and variable wind
clocking from NE round to Southerly and a turning spring tide to contend
with. The starts of races one and
two, both windward/leeward races, were incredibly tight with two general
recalls and a number of individual recalls. The race committee did start a third race, but no sooner were
the boats underway on a round the cans course than the wind began to die. Before long the boats were struggling
to make way over the tide and kedge anchors began appearing on deck. The race committee were forced to
abandon the race to the satisfaction of the vast majority of competitors. The one man not very happy with the
decision was Willy McNeil helming Illegal Immigrant - the only boat to make it
around the first mark.
Race
one proved that in the right conditions the older, smaller boats, built to the
earlier iterations of the Quarter Ton Rule, are more than capable of giving the
big boys a run for their money. Off the line Olivia Anne VI, the lovely little Nortin designed Scampi
helmed by Jan Thirkettle, got a fantastic start and did a magnificent job of
holding onto it despite numerous challenges from the larger boats. Ultimately they
won the race by 31 seconds from Bullet with Whiskers third and Tony Dodd's
David Thomas designed Purple Haze fourth.
Jan
Thirkettle was delighted with their race win - "We had a general recall on the
first start, then picked ourselves up and had a good second start. At that point the wind was better than
we expected, for Olly we need 14 or 15 knots so that was working well for us
and it held up. We had a good
first beat, but I think what really helped for us was the first downwind leg,
we had a really nice downwind leg, we managed to keep the breeze when the puffs
came through and didn't mess anything up on the drops which was good as we had
a couple of new guys on the boat...... The main thing for us was that the wind was what we needed and we were
really chuffed to win."
Race
two brought another general recall and plenty of close boat on boat action. Sergeant Pepper, Richard Thomas's
Bolero designed by his father David Thomas, got off to a flying start and took
advantage of a huge right hander on the first beat to lead round the weather
mark, closely followed by Anchor Challenge. They managed to hold off Anchor Challenge most of the way
down the run, but as the wind speed dropped off the bigger boats ground their
way past leaving them to finish the race in sixth place. By the final beat it was Rob Gray's
Aguila, designed by Rolf Vrolick and helmed by John Greenwood and crewed by
David Howlett, Andy McClelland, Brett Aarons and Dan Gottz; and Cote who were
battling it out for first place with Aquila getting the advantage in the final
stages to take the race by 17 seconds. Third place went to Whiskers with Anchor Challenge fourth.
The
Quarter Tonners can always be guaranteed to throw up some entertaining stories
and today was no different. Two
boats, who shall remain nameless, came round a weather mark so close that the
windward boat's loose spinnaker halyard caught on the weather spreader of the
leeward boat. Neither boat
appeared aware of the problem and as the two boats separated ready to hoist everyone
in the press RIB held his or her breath in anticipation of a nasty
incident. Fortunately the halyard
pinged off unaided at the moment critique and the two boats carried on
blissfully unaware.
Overall
leader Whiskers had been late arriving at the regatta thanks to the need to
rebuild one of the stringers in the back of the boat to stop the transom falling
off and she certainly had her fair share of gear failure today with the toolkit
making a number of appearances on deck. By the end of the day both primary winches had seized completely and
back ashore trimmer John Santy took charge of a full strip down and service to
ensure he wasn't left trimming without mechanical assistance tomorrow.
Another
boat working hard on a repair tonight is Mike Webb and Tom Bailey's Dubois
designed Flashheart. Mike and Tom
bought the boat this past winter and they and their young crew have spent many
hours working on her to get her ready for this regatta. They sailed her for the first time on
Sunday afternoon on the way over to Cowes and were really enjoying today's
racing until the second race when they noticed that the deck was splitting
apart around the mast gate. They
managed to complete race two and were sailing home somewhat despondently to commence
repairs when the news came over the radio that race three had been
abandoned. "We were really
relieved that race three was canned." said Tom Bailey on the dock after
racing. "Mike is down at the
chandlery right now buying some parts so we can get the gate repaired and we'll
be back out again tomorrow."
The
award for most embarrassing manoeuvre of the day goes without doubt to Bullet
who managed to achieve a truly impressive broach in a mere ten to fourteen knots in
race one. Mike Till explained that
they have recently added a much larger new kite to their inventory and this,
combined with their technique of rolling the boat to weather downwind plus an
unexpected wind shift and increase in velocity caught them unawares and before
they knew where they were the boat had slipped out from under them. Mike nearly went over the side, but
remarkably they were able to recover control within a matter of seconds and
lost only a couple of boats lengths. Mike was somewhat rueful about the error as they came second in the race
by 29 seconds and without the broach may well have won.
Tomorrow
racing is scheduled to start at 10.30 am with three further races planned. The forecast is for good wind and
plenty of sunshine so we look forward to another great day of Coutts Quarter Ton Cup
Racing. The regatta concludes on
Wednesday.
Provisional
Overall Top Five After Two Races
1. GBR902R - Whiskers - Ian Southworth/Led Pritchard - 3, 3 = 6
2. GBR7775 - Bullet - Howard Sellars/Mike Till - 2, 5 = 7
3. ESP3090 - Cote - Darren Marsto/Olly Ophaus - 6, 2 = 8
4. GBR506$ - Anchor Challenge - Peter Morton - 5, 4 = 9
5. GBR50R - Espada - Louise Morton - 8, 8 = 16
Full
results are available from
www.rcyc.co.uk.Thanks to Paul Wyeth of
www.pwpictures.com for the images used in today's release.
For further information about the 2010 Coutts Quarter Ton Cup please visit from
www.rcyc.co.uk or contact Jo
Chugg,Sailing Secretary, Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, The Parade, Cowes, Isle of
Wight, PO31 7QU, E-mail
jo.chugg@sigma33.com, Tel +44 (0)1983
293581.
Members of the press requiring further information should contact RCYC Press Officer Fiona Brown
on E-mail
fiona.brown@fionabrown.com or Tel +44 (0)7711 718470.
