Cowes, UK - 15 June
2010 -
Day two of the Coutts
Quarter Ton Cup, hosted by the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Cowes, brought some
of the most challenging conditions the Solent can deliver - and as any Solent
sailor will tell you, that's saying something. With a rapidly shifting and gusting wind from the North East
quarter fluctuating in strength from single figures up towards 20 knots, plus a
strong spring tide which changed direction in the middle of racing the 35
competing boats had their work cut out. "The cream of the tacticians certainly
rose to the top today!" Quarter Ton Class Secretary and skipper of Espada
Louise Morton commented wryly after sailing, "I can't quite believe that we
have 35 boats competing, although it feels like a hundred when you have to
cross behind them all on port, which is what we had to do today."
PRO Bob Milner and his
team were on a mission and had forewarned the competitors of their intention to
run four races today to catch up the schedule following the abandonment of
yesterday's attempted third race. Good to their word they laid on three windward leeward races in the Hill
Head area of the central Solent followed by a final round the cans race taking
the competitors back to finish off Cowes.
With six races
completed it's been snakes and ladders on the leader board and with the discard
still to kick in (it comes into play after seven races) there's still plenty
more climbing and sliding to come on tomorrow's final day. Peter Morton sailing the 1976
Farr designed Anchor Challenge with bowman Jason Carrington, pitman Kelvin
Rawlings, trimmer John Newnham and tactician Stuart Childerley has jumped into a 1.5 point lead thanks to an outstanding day with a 1, 3.5, 1,
1 scoreline.
Lying in second place
on 17 points having added 3, 1, 3, 2 to their score is Darren Marston and Olly
Ophaus's 1990 Gonzalez design Cote with tactician Dave Lenz, trimmer Rob Dyer
and pitman Chris Cooper (Darren helms and Olly does the bow). Although they had an excellent day
afloat the boys joined the emergency boat repair club tonight as they affected repairs to the anchor points on their pushpits which were starting to give way (we're
not sure if this is because they are hiking harder than everyone else or just
that they've eaten more pies!).
Currently in third
place on 34 points, but looking forward to the completion of race seven and the
instigation of the discard,as they are counting a 16th place thanks
to a Z flag penalty, is John Greenwood and his crew of tactician David Howlett,
Andy McClelland, Brett Aarons and Dan Gottz sailing Rob Gray's 1990 Vrolick
design Aquila. Alongside the
Z-flag their other scores today were 2, 2, 2, 11 which moved them nicely up from last night's sixth overall.
Louise Morton and her
all girl crew of Josie Gibson, Vicky Lenz, Charlotte Lawrence, Collette Blair
and Nicky McGregor had a very consistent day and have moved up from fifth into fourth on 47 points. They got the day off to a fair start with a ninth in race
three but stumbled in race four where they could only manage joint 20th,
largely thanks to that bad start Louise mentioned in our opening paragraph, before
recovering a little to finish sixth and eighth to close the day.
Overnight leader
Whiskers is another boat that can't wait for the discard to kick in after they
were OCS and also blew up a jib track in the third race. forcing them to withdraw and get the toolbox on deck once again They subsequently went on to score 6,
5, 5 so while they have currently dropped down into sixth place overall on 58
points if they can do well tomorrow and drop that DNF/36 they are still in with
a good chance of making the podium.
For Howard Sellars and
Mike Till aboard Bullet, a 1978 Fauroux, it was a day of mixed fortunes. Having gone into the day lying second they now find themselves in fifth, seven and a half points ahead of
Whiskers. Tactician Henry Bagnall
summed things up perfectly saying "It just wasn't our day, we just couldn't
seem to find a clear lane and when ever we wanted to go somewhere we found
someone else had got there just before us. It was definitely one of the toughest Solent days I've
seen."
As always the action
has been fleet wide and perhaps the most spectacular action of all came from
Flashheart, the 1978 Dubois designed Starflash owned by Mike Webb and Tom
Bailey. A
bunch of dinghy and big boat sailors they are the first to admit that they
are on a steep learning curve with the Quarter Tonner (although as the son of
George and nephew of Jim Webb, both legendary Quarter Ton sailors and builders, Quarter Ton sailing is in Mike's blood). Today the boys just couldn't quite seem to remember the old adage about
keeping the aluminium above the plastic and their pirouetting and horizontal
side slides kept the photo boats busy on a regular basis. Below is their best effort of the day,
which won them a bottle of Mount Gay Rum at tonight's prize giving.
Another young competitor
with Quarter Tonners in his blood is Ireland's George Kenefick, son of the
infamous Neil Kenefick of Manzanita fame, who with co-owner George Kingston and
crew Nathan Kirwan, Donagh Good and Dian Twomey is sailing the 1989 Faroux
design Tiger (formerly ASAP). The
boys got their regatta off to a slightly wobbly start yesterday and were lying
in 14th overnight. But
today this enthusiastic young crew found their form and thanks to a 4, 5, 14, 6
score they were not only the fourth best performers of the day but have also
moved up into seventh overall. This young crew are always up for some craic as can be seen from their
media information form which tells us nothing about their sailing skills but does advise us that pitman Denis Good is the
current "Best Fishmonger On The Irish South Coast".
This evening the
sailors have been enjoying the traditional Coutts Quarter Ton Cup Gala
Dinner. Always a highlight of the
event this year's after dinner speaker was the New Zealand sailing guru Roy
Dickson. Winner of the One Ton
Cup, the Quarter Ton Cup, championships in multiple classes and even two Round
The Isle of Wight Races as well as a participant in numerous America's Cups, Roy
regaled his audience with some incredible tales of how he came to take part in
that winning Quarter Ton Cup - a complete accident he assures us - and of the
regatta itself. He also praised
the Quarter Ton Association for its outstanding work in reviving the class and
thanked his team members for giving him the chance to sail in a Quarter Tonner
once again. He did point out that
he was breaking three of his personal rules in being here: A) That you should never go back. B) That you should never sail on a boat
whose length in feet is less than your age - and at 78 years he acknowledges he is more than 60% out on
this one. And finally C) That he
never makes speeches. His audience
were delighted that he had agreed to break all three of these rules to join
them on the water and entertain them this evening and gave him a rousing
reception.
The regatta concludes
tomorrow and with good winds forecast and plenty more races to come (the NOR allows for up to 12 races) we can
expect a nail biting finish.
Full results are
available from
www.rcyc.co.uk.
For those of you who
love boat statistics
Click Here for a list of the boats giving their date of
build and designer.
You can also follow
the event and find further interviews, video clips and photos on the
Quarter Ton Class Blog.
Provisional
Overall Top Five After Six Races
1. GBR506$ - Anchor Challenge - Peter Morton - 5, 4, 1, 3.5, 1, 1 = 15.5
2. ESP3090 - Cote - Darren Marsto/Olly Ophaus - 6, 2, 3, 1, 3, 2 = 17
3. GBR8414 Aquila - Rob Gray/John Greenwood - 16/ZFP, 1, 2, 2, 2, 11 = 34
4. GBR50R - Espada - Louise Morton - 8, 8, 5, 12, 7, 7 = 47
5. GBR7775 - Bullet - Howard Sellars/Mike Till - 2, 5, 9, 20.5, 6, 8 = 50.5
Full
results are available from
www.rcyc.co.uk.Thanks to Paul Wyeth of
www.pwpictures.com and Fiona Brown of
www.fionabrown.com for the images used in today's release.
For further information about the 2010 Coutts Quarter Ton Cup please visit
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.
