CLASS LEADERS FIRMING UP
23 July 2026
Summery conditions on the Solent continued for day four of British Classic Week with the Royal Yacht Squadron’s race committee led by Peter Saxton, following a one hour postponement to 1300. Today Classes 1-3 sailed a 15.6 mile course and Classes 4-5 a 12.6 mile one; both in the western Solent visiting both mainland and island shores, with the start west of the Beaulieu River, finishing back in Cowes at the Squadron line.
In Class 1 Chris Cecil-Wright’s turboed Nicholson 55 Eager once again relished the conditions and with round the world sailor Manley Hopkinson on board calling the manoeuvres managed to beat Harry J Heijst’s S&S 41 Winsome by 1 minute 19 seconds on IRC corrected time with Daniel and Suzie Anthony’s Spirit 46 Dido third. Eager now holds a three point lead over Winsome going into the final day of racing tomorrow.
Class 2 sets sail with David McCue’s Classic 38 Bel Canto to weather. Photo: Chris Brown
Class 2 saw Richard Haines’ 8mR Saskia claim her third bullet of the regatta, by a significant 7 minutes 47 second margin over the 8mR Fulmar with David Murrin’s 48ft Laurent Giles-designed Cetewayo third. Second place for Fulmar represented a significant bounce-back after her retirement yesterday after breaking a spreader. Her challenge today was all the harder as, due to difficulties getting to the start, they set off four minutes late.
“The boat was going fantastically and we picked our way through the fleet and had a great tussle with Cetewayo,” commented Fulmar’s David Smith. “It was just the weather for us with 10-12 knots. The tide was absurd, so calls on marks were vital: If you got it wrong, you'd end up down tide… The guys were really good: close tacking up the shore with our big no1 genoa is a challenge so I need to buy them a beer.”
There were also some tight kite runs, some too tight for Smith’s 1930 vintage Fife. “There were couple of times when we had to re-hoist the genoa, before going back to the spinnaker.”
Michael Brigg’s Clyde Linear 30 Mikado. Photo: Chris Brown
The class with perhaps the hottest competition this week has been Class 3. This was best demonstrated by perennial winner, Whooper, of Regatta Director Giovanni Belgrano, sailing “the best we possibly could” only to be beaten by a mere 12 seconds today by Fenton Burgin’s 6mR Sioma II. This was the second bullet this week for the Johan Anker design, which now leads Class 3 by two points from Whooper – a fine result for her centenary celebrations.
Burgin commented: “The best thing today was short tacking towards Lepe Spit and beyond. It was just brilliant cross-tacking with other boats, feet apart, boats changing place every few hundred yards. I was wondering what the guys who built this boat would think about our sailing her now? I think they'd be super pleased with us…”
When it comes to narrow and pointy-ended, few classics can compete with the 6mR. In Sioma II’s case she is 41ft long but just 26ft on the waterline. Originally launched for Clyde shipping magnate Clad Allan, she was then owned by Muffie Mackinnon, who in 1931 became the first female downhill and slalom world champion. After years of deterioration, in the 1990s Sioma II was restored by Clare Lallow, who sheathing her in epoxy “so we can carry the same rig tension that a modern 6mR can.”
This is Sioma II’s fifth British Classic Week. “It's such a nice friendly regatta. We love sailing with good classic company. It's a gentlemanly sporting event but today we were cross-tacking up the beach within feet of other boats - full-on stuff!”
The West Solent One Design Enchanted (left) and Mikado(right) sandwich the Peter Morton’s Swan 36 Scherzo. Photo: Chris Brown.
Completing Class 3’s podium was Richard Hargreaves’ Cowes-based Aeolus. Despite being built to the 30 Square Metre rule (created in Scandinavia in the 1900s to produce speedy lightweight craft compared to the those of the Anglo-US Metre rules), Aeolus is more contemporary, built in Sweden in the late 1980s as a run of five boats to a 1970s design. Hargreaves explains: “On the deck it looks almost the size of an 8mR, but at three tons it's less than half the weight, and half her lead is in the keel.”
Of today’s race Hargreaves commented: “It was Aeolus' weather - we had a great first beat and managed to get in front of the fleet. There was 10 knots of wind, but with the tide we lost that pressure downwind. Coming into the finish we got the river wind heading you just as you reached the line.”
Class 4 saw a first race win for Chris Hill’s 1969 vintage Swan 36 Nora. She finished on corrected time 2 minutes 33 seconds ahead of David Heritage’s 100-year-old West Solent One Design Harlequin and the Hutchinson family’s S&S RORC One Tonner Sunmaid V.
“It was a long day and we had to work really hard for it,” said Hill. “We didn't have the best start and we weren't particularly sensible up the first beat - one bad tack and we crossed behind all the others. Otherwise our crew work was spot on and we rolled [Peter Morton’s Swan 36 sistership] Scherzo during a hoist.”
Having bought her in 2024 in Lake Erie, Nora has come out of a two year refit on the Dart River (she proudly flies the Royal Dart Yacht Club burgee) and this is only her third regatta. “We can be an unguided missile at times,” Hill admitted. “We're on a learning curve, but we are really enjoying sailing her. On that long port tack, we just found the balance, and we just rolled them. And then we made some good downwind calls on the way back, because that was tricky.”
The Anthony’s Spirit 46 Dido hunts down Andrew Haining’s Spirit 37 Vesper 1. Photo: Chris Brown.
Class 5 victory again went to Andrew Gilmour’s Kim Holman-designed Stella, however the day went much better for Jonathan Dyke’s sistership Star Shell which finished second, two minutes five seconds behind, with the Ossie Stewart/Damon Roberts powerhouse rounding out the podium on their 1894-vintage Thames One Rater, Dorothy
Jonathan Dyke’s companies Classic Marine and Suffolk Yacht Harbour and Andrew Gilmour are attempting to save the Stella class. Conceived by designer Kim Holman in the late 1950s as a Folkboat with improved accommodation (optimistically she is a four berth family cruiser), the Stella is 26ft clinker sloop of which 110 examples were built and 70 remain, many still racing on the East Coast. Star Shell was relaunched last year after two year’s restoration and it is a testament to the quality of her design that she and sistership Timoa currently lead Class Five.
Dyke is also Chairman of the British Classic Yacht Club that runs British Classic Week and paid tribute to Regatta Director Giovanni Belgrano and organiser Jessica Gray, along with Race Officer Peter Saxton and his team for laying on a sensation five days of racing, combining top competition on the water and enjoyable popular social events ashore, culminating in this evening’s Regatta Supper in the Cowes Events Centre.
Tomorrow will be the final day of competition. The scheduled race around the Isle of Wight has been cancelled due to the light forecast and will be replaced with a long inshore race.
James Boyd/British Classic Week