Cowes Week Day 6 & 7; Final Thoughts

August 14, 2010

Day 6

To start at the back, we came 16th. This was our worst result in Cowes Week 2010. Funny enough we did not sail so bad. We started from the Committee Boat end of the line and had a beat to our first mark near the Bramble bank. We came 4th at the first mark, which I consider pretty good, as there was once again about 7kts of breeze at the start. At the second mark we made our first mistake.

A wind shift at about  50 meters from the mark, should have made us change from a “Jibe-set” to a “Bear away set”. As we did not change our plan, we sailed much more distance and lost about three places. We made a huge gamble at a beat back from the Eastern part of the solent. All our competitors followed the shore and we got stuck in the middle of the Solent tacking up Mother Bank. Thank god, nothing much changed in our position, but is was a “high risk, low reward” enterprise. So now we are still with the first 8 boats.

The class got split at the final beat towards the finish. Some of our class crossed the Solent directly from Burges Salmon and other like ourselves stayed at the North Shore. We politely followed the Deckman route, but this was our major ‘mistake’. All boats that had crossed the Solent first, picked up a nice lift an far less breeze then the 25 kts we encountered. They must have gained about 20 – 25 mins. No hard feelings.

Day 7

It looked very with 25kts forecasted. We did not have a good start, but with excellent boat handling and perfect trimming and good tactics we fought our way back to third on the water. 6th on handicap.

Final Thoughts

We feel slightly disappointed with the 2010 results; a 5th place overall in IRC 5. Why are we disappointed? I guess we feel disappointed because we all feel we should and could have done slightly better. In the past years,”YES” was never within our reach, but also never so unreachable.

From day 1 we were always fightling our way up from the back of the fleet. We started with a collision, which was not our fault, but we should not have given anybody the chance to mess with us. It was very bad that Andy was still recovering and had to leave us after day 2. We feel sorry for him, and once again it made perfectly clear how much talent and skills he adds. We were not so lucky with 6 starts in less then 10 kts of breeze. Our 11 tons are hard to get moving, but hey! That is what sailing is about… Watching the fireworks I had a chat with the “VANILLA” crew. They thought we sailed well by coming 5th, at which we should be proud. Actually I think they are so right. We never had so excellent trimming and such good boat handling before. These are our last Cowes Week results:

• 2003 2nd
• 2004 3rd
• 2005 2nd
• 2006 1st
• 2007 retired
• 2008 2nd
• 2009 4th
• 2010 5th

We should be proud of these last 8 years.

 

We congratulate “YES” and “VANILLA” with their victories and hope to race them again in 2011.