SASKIA AND 100-YEAR-OLD HARLEQUIN CLEAN UP
24 July 2026
Due to the weather conditions the traditional race around the Isle of Wight was replaced by a long ‘Cowes Week’ style course in the central Solent, concluding the 24th edition of British Classic Week. Today’s competition was ‘Race for a Case’, sponsored by leading family-run champagne house Billecart-Salmon: The crew of each class winner today won a case of champagne while the owner took home (or drank immediately in celebration) a magnum of the finest fizz from Mareuil-sur-Aÿ.
For the 1200 start, taking place from the Squadron line in a 12 knot southwesterly, the fleet was divided in two, both sailing a multiple leg lap of the central Solent, the bigger, faster boats in Classes 1-3 sent off on a longer first beat to East Lepe, while Classes 4-5 cracked off at Gurnard.
In most of the five classes, the winner was decided with a day/race to spare and this was despite a discard kicking in after today’s final race. Only in Class Three did it go to the wire – if Giovanni Belgrano’s 1939 Laurent Giles design Whooper won today she claimed the top prize; if Fenton Burgin’s 1926 Anker-designed 6mR was first, then she would. In the event Whooper beat Sioma II by 1 minute 1 seconds under IRC corrected time with Richard Hargreaves' 30 Square Metre Aeolus third, positions duplicated in the overall Class Three results.
Giovanni Belgrano’s Whooper (right) jockeys with Andrew Haining’s Spirit Vesper. Photo: Chris Brown
“It was a classic Solent race and you had to really be careful,” advised Belgrano. “It was at the turn of the tide and the breeze was starting to fill in, so it wasn't straightforward. We had to continuously find the best lanes. Like two days ago, we used virtually every sail on the boat. But at this stage of the season, after 30 days of racing, we are faultless in our boat handling, decision making, communication, etc. Today if any of the Class Two or One boats flinched, we were on them.”
In Class 1 the turboed Nicholson 55 Eager posted a near perfect scoreline, discarding a second to leave her with straight bullets. Today she beat the Anthony family’s Spirit 46 Dido by 2 minutes 14 seconds with the S&S 41 Winsome again third, Harry J Heijst’s string of podium finishes leaving Winsome second overall, four points adrift of Eager.
Eager owner Chris Cecil-Wright commented: “We were a little bit nervous today because we lost Manley [Hopkinson, crew boss] along with most of our senior crew. But we had many youth: Ben Vines’ son, Ollie, and another young Rogers, Kai, Finn's cousin and Finn, who has helmed for the last three days.”
The eminent superyacht broker continued: “I love this event. It's a really nice level. There was a good amount of participants and some stiff competition. We knew that if we made a mistake, we wouldn't win and usually we only won by a minute or so each day. Winsome made some mistakes and that cost them. When they didn't make a mistake, they beat us. We also did well because the conditions were our absolute sweet spot – in flat water and 13 knots, we just truck…”
Chris Cecil-Wright’s Nicholson 55 Eager en route to Class One victory.
However the big prize and further Billecart-Salmon went to the Class 2 winner Richard Haines’ 1931 vintage Fife 8mR Saskia. This was only Haines’ third regatta in his newly acquired 8mR following this season’s Fife Regatta and Richard Mille Cup. “We were wondering how we might go against Fulmar [a 1930 Fife 8mR]. They got away from us on the first beat of the first race, so we thought, oh dear, what’s going to happen? But, since then we've covered our time on them in every race.”
Saskia’s crew is riddled with talent including veteran East Coast sailmaker John Parker, Graham Sunderland (of Winning Tides fame) and several insurance experts such as Richard Power (this being Haines’ business).
“Starting on the Squadron line is always exciting,” Haines concluded. “The Solent's a lovely place to sail - you're in the heart of yachting. The old owner Murdoch [McKillop] took me inside the Royal Yacht Squadron and showed me the silver model they've got of Saskia.”
Class Two and Class One to Three combined prize winner - Richard Haines’ 8mR Saskia. Photo: Chris Brown.
The big winner in the smaller classes was the West Solent One Design (WSOD) Harlequin of boat builder David Heritage and enjoying her centenary this year. The celebrations of Heritage and his crew including old hands John Santy, Mike Stannard, Ben Casford and Lincoln Redding had began earlier in the week and not stopped, but this did not prevent them beating Tim Yetman's Kevin Sproul-steered sistership Suvretta into second by 45 seconds with yesterday's winner, Chris Hills' Swan 36 Nora, third; Claire Locke’s WSOD Enchanted retired with a broken tiller.
“We've had a fantastic week,” said Heritage. “The lads on the boat have dragged me around the course, gave me a kicking when I needed it. We're old mates, so it’s great to sail this boat with them. It's got a big main so plenty going on at times and it's not an easy boat to sail.” Short tacking up through the moorings today proved a challenge.
With discards, Harlequin won on five points to Suvretta's 11 and Nora's 14 and also won the combined Class Four and Five prize with Timoa, from Class Five, edging into second place ahead of Suvretta in this.
A fine result for her centenary season: David Heritage’s Harlequin claimed Class 4 and the prize for the smaller classes combined.
Like Eager, in Class Five Andrew Gilmour’s Kim Holman-designed Timoa scored a near perfect scoreline, discarding a second.
“We had a bit of everything today,” said Gilmour. “The short beat to Gurnard was a quite frantic, because the Class Four and Five boats started on the outer line and it was difficult to find a lane into there. We had some tight legs where we used a Code Zero, which helped us, when some boats couldn't carry their spinnakers and didn't have something like an asymmetric. It was a lovely race, a nice one to finish the week on. Once again, Peter Saxton and his race team did a great job.”
Among Timoa’s crew was Gilmour’s daughter Helen Porter, Marketing Director of Spirit Yachts, and Victoria Theaker, who was the top under-25 and female helm for Wednesday’s pursuit race.
In addition to the class trophies and the Billecart-Salmon champagne, a new set of trophies was introduced for this British Classic Week for ‘gold standard vintage authentic’ boats – ie of a similar originality as that required by the Comité International del Mediterráneo (CIM) to complete in classic regattas in the Med. These trophies were custom made from five gold sovereigns Belgrano acquired.
In their respective classes, one to five, these went to the German-flagged 1938 Abeking & Rasmussen 12mR Anita; Saskia; Jason Fry’s Anker-designed first rule 8mR Njord; Harlequin and Star Shell, the Stella of British Classic Yacht Club Commodore Jonathan Dyke.
Of this year’s event Regatta Director Giovanni Belgrano concluded: “It's been incredible given how tough the weather options were - it looked awful all week but with a lot of skill and determination, Peter Saxton and his team managed to nail it. We raced every day and their timing today was once again perfect. We’ve used every ounce of wind available.”
Now all eyes turn to next year’s event: the 25th anniversary of British Classic Week. “We are going to go all in to make it really special,” advises Belgrano. “We look forward to attracting classic yachts coming from the Mediterranean. This year everything worked like clockwork on the water and onshore. We're in really good shape for 2027.”
James Boyd/British Classic Week