TIGHT RACING AND CHAMPAGNE SAILING FOR DAY TWO

A decisive 3.5 hour delay by Race Officer Peter Saxton and his team from the Royal Yacht Squadron caused day two of British Classic Week to be held in perfect southwesterly sea breeze conditions. As a result for today’s long inshore race, sponsored by OneSails GBR, held on a round the cans course spanning the central Solent starting and finishing on the Squadron line, the wind peaked in the mid-teens, the seas slowly building.

On Chris Cecil-Wright’s Eager (right), after the tricky downwind start, his turboed Nicholson 55 eventually shook off the classic German 12m Anita and pulled ahead on the water as the front runners sailed a dog leg skirting the Brambles Bank. After the final beat to a mark off the Beaulieu River - by which time the wind was up into the mid-teens – then a run back to the Cowes finish, the eminent yacht broker and his crew had extended away, leaving yesterday winner’s Harry J Heijst’s 1972 vintage S&S 41 Winsome second by 2 minutes 43 seconds on IRC corrected time and the Anthony family's Spirit 46 Dido third.

Victory on Eager came, Cecil-Wright explained, because “we didn't make any heinous mistakes. We’ve definitely got legs in this fleet and we've got a really big kite, although we don't have any asymmetrics.” After a kite handling error yesterday, this morning Eager went out to practice their gybes under the tutelage of former BT Global Challenge skipper and crew boss Manley Hopkinson. “Our kite handling today was good. Our nav was fine today. We had a bit of a ding-dong with the 12mR, but we managed to dispatch them after they tacked on us - in the bigger wind we could tack quickly.”

On Eager they are racing with several Eager regulars but also four teenagers, including Cecil-Wright’s towering 14-year-old son Sam and 13-year-old Ophelia Jones with Cecil-Wright and Phil Lightbody sharing tactical duties here.

On board today’s Class One winner, Eager

Class 2 saw another equally heavyweight bout and today it was David Murrin's 1957 Laurent Giles sloop Cetawayo, that won albeit in the closest finish, beating yesterday’s winner, Richard Haines’ 8mR Saskia, by 16 seconds with Mark Dowie’s 1937 Johan Anker-designed 52ft cutter Bojar third.

“The race committee did a great job of delaying the start, so we had solid sea breeze through the whole race: Well done Peter Saxton,” commented David Murrin, who jointly founded this event and the British Classic Yacht Club with its original Commodore Tim Blackman in 2002 following the 2001 America’s Cup Jubilee Regatta. Looking back Murrin says he was determined that rather than being a mere show, the racing would be serious and competitive, under the Royal Ocean Racing Club’s IRC rule. “The racing would no longer be a joke: we wanted to take it seriously - that was core to making the fleet better…”

Of today’s race, Murrin said they had enjoyed the reaching leg which just got them into clear air before making real gains on the upwinds. “On the first beat we did really well by staying right, we came back at the boats who were ahead of us, then we had a really great little leg downwind under A sail.” They made further gains on the next upwind, short tacking up the shore in the back eddies while picking perfect laylines.

“It was an incredible feeling where you knew you'd sailed really well as a team. It was a wonderfully satisfying day, with great competition, because you're only defined by who you race against…and the fleet's really competitive.”

David Murrin bought Cetawayo in 1989, before racing classic yachts was popular, having been advised by his father to “buy a boat before a house…” Prior to Murrin she was campaigned heavily offshore by Brian Stewart as Zulu. Photo: Chris Brown

Regatta Director and competitor, leading grand prix race boat structural engineer Giovanni Belgrano claimed Class 3 today, his two time IRC National Championship winning 1939 vintage 39ft sloop Whooper beating Richard Hargreaves’s 30 Square Metre Aeolus by 2 minutes 3 seconds. Yesterday’s winner Fenton Burgin’s 6mR Sioma II was third.

 “I'm pleased to have won but more than anything I was excited because it was a truly action-packed day,” commented Belgrano. “The boats 0ere being raced really hard and there was amazing boat-on-boat amazing combat, everyone pushing their boats to 100% but with zero shouting. It was fantastic. We converged with the top Class 4 boats which were barely any slower than us and we had a real race with them trying to keep out of each other's way. None of us wanted to give an inch. You couldn't blink!” 

A suitable prize for his fine craft celebrating her centenary this year was boat builder David Heritage's Harlequin in Class 4 beating another West Solent One Design Tim Yetman’s Suvretta by 39 seconds – the closest margin across the classes - leaving Michael Brigg’s 1904 Fife Mikado third. The two West Solent One Designs are now tied at the top of Class 4 ahead of yesterday’s winner Volonte, Malcolm Offord’s 1968 S&S design.

Whooper holds her kite on the reach. Photo: Chris Brown

There was a similar sistership 1-2 today in Class 5 where Andrew Gilmour’s 1961 vintage Timoa beat another Kim Holman-designed Stella (similar to a Folkboat but with a larger cabin) British Classic Yacht Club Commodore Jonathan Dyke’s Star Shell, by 4 minutes 29 seconds. The Richardson family’s SHE 31 Arctic Skua was again third. Timoa was originally owned by Gilmour’s father John and after she was sold he tracked her down bought and refitted her. This is his sixth British Classic Week and he and Timoa come in fresh from finishing runners-up in the 800-strong Round the Island Race fleet. Strongly an East Coast boat, Gilmour is sailing with a crew including his daughter Helen, Marketing Director of Spirit Yachts.

Gilmour said of their day: “We had a pretty good run and I think we managed the build breeze reasonably well with getting through the waves, driving the boat, not pinching too much, sticking in the best of the tide, etc. We didn't have any handling errors to speak of, so very happy. We were good on the last bit of the beat as the waves flattened out.

“I think Peter Saxton and the race team have thus far done a brilliant job to get two races in. Yesterday was a particular challenge and they got it just right. Today they started at just the right moment, just as the breeze was coming in and did a fantastic job - all credit to them.”

Tomorrow is British Classic Week’s unique pursuit race which concludes at a set time rather than at a finish line. For this crews are encouraged to have female or Under 25 helms and one of the interesting battles will be between Eager, with 22-year-old Finn Rogers helming and Cetawayo, with Finn’s capable cousin Hattie behind the wheel.

James Boyd/British Classic Week

Tight racing in Class 5 with British Classic Yacht Club Commodore Jonathan Dyke’s Star Shell to leeward. Photo: Chris Brown.