Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship 2007 - Weekend 1

Nils Razmilovic powers down the run on the first weekend of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship 2007 © TKZ

Heavy weather start

The first weekend of this year's Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship proved to be wet and windy.

Saturday delivered thirty knots of breeze from the southwest with a very rough sea and Willie Sanderson, the Island Sailing Club's race officer, decided to abandon the windward leeward racing of the Red Funnel series but to stage a round the cans race from the Club line which would become part of the Cowes Keelboat Solent Series.

The Darings were the only class that took up the invitation to race, and only three boats with hardy crews came to the line. They headed off on a short course with upwind and downwind legs between West Ryde Middle and Gales HSB, but no one was brave or foolhardy enough to set a spinnaker.

Derring Do, led off the line on the first run to West Ryde Middle and held her position to the first mark. But on the beat to Gales HSB Robin Aisher had Defiant powering upwind, and at the mark it was Defiant in the lead ahead of Derring Do and Dynamite. Defiant held on to win by thirty seconds from Dynamite, which overtook early leader Derring Do to grab second place.

By Sunday, the wind had swung to the east but was now accompanied by heavy rain. Despite the horrible conditions, the race officer was determined to complete a Red Funnel race if possible, so he laid a windward leeward course over by the Brambles near Hill Head. Two Etchells came to the line, keen to use the conditions as part of their practice for their World Championship, which will be held here next month. Only Nils Razmilovic's Matatu made it round the windward mark and he set a spinnaker and flew off down the run in big seas and 25 knots of wind.

Six Darings proved that they are the hardiest class in Cowes as they set off up the beat with heavy rain, blown horizontal by the wind, creating a near white-out in the Solent. Having seen the Etchells round the weather mark we waited for the Darings. And we waited, and waited with nothing to be seen in the circle of grey that our part of the Solent had become. Eventually, the Darings realised they'd sailed past the mark and turned round to find it, and we were able to tell them that their race had been abandoned and they could head for home!

So, the result of the first weekend of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship was only one race sailed, by one class, with only one finisher - the storming Nils Razmilovic in his Etchells Matatu.

The second weekend of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship will be run by the Royal London Yacht Club on 9-10 June.

Full dates of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship:

12-13 May, Island Sailing Club
9-10 June, Royal London Yacht Club
21-22 July, Royal Thames Yacht Club
8-9 September, Cowes Corinthian Yacht Club
22-23 September, Royal Yacht Squadron
6-7 October, Royal Corinthian Yacht Club

For results visit cowes.result.vg