Skandia Cowes Week 2007
It is generally felt that the summer of 2007 did not produce the warm balmy conditions that we normally associate with that season.
However for Skandia Cowes week the sun shone and for the first part of the week the breezes gave us some perfect sailing conditions. The breezes were more fickle for the last few days which made for some more challenging conditions, but as the sun continued to shine everyone had a pleasurable time.
Cowes Sailing School once again operated the “Try Racing” scheme, inviting anyone who would like to experience racing in Cowes week to participate on the Sigma 38. No previous experience was necessary although some always helps.
This produced 27 different people during the week for anything between just one and for some, six days of racing.
This year we were privileged to have a core of four who sailed the first six days with us, they bought a good level of experience to the team as well as continuity previously unavailable.
The level of experience aboard “Bellerophon” varied enormously from an experienced “Etchell” crew to a first time sailor who had been given a couple of day’s racing as a Christmas present! Days afloat appeared a popular present as there was also a gentleman enjoying a sixtieth birthday present from his family.
This year for the first time the Sigma 38’s did not have their own start but were amalgamated into Class 6 which produced a larger class and a wider range of yachts to compete against.
Generally the racing is started from the Royal Yacht Squadron with an imaginary line across the shipping channel to a committee boat on station at the outer distance mark. The countdown to the start is via the VHF radio which is how the information for the course is also given. The idea is to arrive at the imaginary start line at the time of the start sailing at top speed; this is a lot easier said than achieved!
With the large number of classes racing each day, some are taken off to one of the ends of the Solent for a Committee boat start. We had two committee boat starts, one on the first Saturday and one midweek on Wednesday. This enables the committee to set a start line perpendicular to the wind to ensure that the line is not favoured at one end as sometimes happens at the Royal Yacht Squadron line. It also ensures that these classes have some space at the start before meeting up with the rest of the event.
The breeze peaked on the Monday with about 25 knots, this was the only day that we decided to keep the spinnakers down below and merely enjoy the spectacle of those getting it right and powering away down wind and those who were less experienced giving us some amusement as they displayed the problems of heavy weather spinnaker handling! |
