Vice Admirals Cup at Royal Corinthian Yacht Club, Cowes - Day 2
by Fiona Brown 3 Jun 2007 22:07 BST
2-4 June 2007
Light airs dog day two but Quarter Tonners prevail
The second day of the Royal Corinthian Yacht Club's Vice Admiral's Cup was dogged by light airs. Fortunately for the Quarter Tonners (Class 4), Race Officer Robin Oakley and his team were on excellent form and did an impressive job of tracking what little breeze there was up on the Lee On The Solent shore to run three great short but challenging races. Sadly for Bob Milner, Race Officer for Class 0 and Class 1, the deep draft of many of the boats in this group made it impossible for him to take advantage of this narrow band of wind near the mainland shore and after several hours delay the big boat racing had to be cancelled for the day.
With Daren Marston's Catch unable to play today because of other commitments it was Paul Kelsey's Runaway Bus, helmed by Peter Williams, that came to the fore. The boat seemed to revel in the light airs of race four and five and despite some very stiff competition from Chris Frost and Kevin George's Tom Bombadil won both races by the narrowest of margines.
Race 4 was extremely light with a tricky 5-7 knots from the 145 degrees. From the off it was as much about spotting where the stronger patches of wind were than anything else and a momentary loss of concentration could spell disaster. Ultimately it was Tony Dodd's legendary Purple Haze team that took third place being Runaway Bus and Tom Bombadil with Louise Morton and the Super Q girls in fourth.
By the start of race five the wind had increased a little but was still extremely fickle. Runaway Bus got the best of the start but Tom Bombadil was hard on her heels and the two boats were at each others throats the entire way round the course. On corrected time it was Bus who took the laurels by just five seconds. The battle for third was another duel between Super Q and Purple Haze but this time the girls on Super Q had the upper hand and Haze had to be content with fourth
As race five came to a close the south easterly breeze was dying and Robin Oakley made a wise decision to move the race course north and into the new sea breeze filling in from the western Solent. After a short delay the course was set and race six was started in a building 10 knots from 245 degrees. Tom Bombadil looked to have thrown the race away in the opening moments as they were pushed out at the leeward end and forced to spin around for a second go. As the fleet went off to the left Tom Bombadil took the only alternative and headed off to the righthand corner across their transoms.
As the fleet approached the weather mark it became clear that Bombadil's move had payed off and they were back in contention. Purple Haze led the fleet round the first mark and away down the run but Runaway Bus was on her transom and slowly crawled through to leeward. At the gybe Haze, whose crew work is normally exemplary, collapsed the kite momentarily which was enough to allow Bus through.
On the run Bombadil had made up yet more ground and they rounded just 2 feet from Bus's transom. On the second beat they went into overdrive and by the final weather mark they had snatched the lead, going on to win the race by just nine seconds. In the melee behind them Purple Haze just held off Super Q by ten seconds with Runaway Bus in fourth.
In the overall standings for the Quarter Tonners (Class 4) Tom Bombadil now leads on 9 points. Runaway Bus has moved up into second with 11 points, Purple Haze is fourth on 17 points and Super Q is just one point beind her on 18. With two more races to go tomorrow we're all set for a great Quarter Ton final showdown.
For Quarter Ton newbie Paul Kelsey and the Runaway Bus crew it was a particularly rewarding day. "It was good close racing despite the light airs and positions were changing regularly, particularly in the last race. We bought the boat in November last year and she spent the winter with David Heritage being refitted with Mark Mills helping us to optimise the boat for IRC and Hamble Yacht Services sorting out the standing and running rigging under Roger Marino's supervision. This was the first weekend we'd actually been able to complete a race so it's been an interesting learing curve for us and we're just trying things out and learning what works. We're very happy and pleased with how the boat is going so far and we're looking forward to going head to head with the full Quarter Ton fleet at next weekend's Coutts Quarter Ton Cup."
With no racing today the Class 0 and Class 1 overall results remain unchanged with Colm Barrington's Flash Glove leading Benny Kelly's Panthera and Charles Dunstone's Red in Class 0, and Jerry Otter's Werewolf leading Agne Nilssson's Fortis Excel and Shaun Frohlich's Exabyte Four in Class 1.
Also to be decided tomorrow is the latest leg of the Swan 45 Northern European Championship. Going into the final day Glynn William's WISC leads Grant Gordon & Klaus Diederich's Fever by just one point so we're expecting some exciting racing between these two tomorrow. The Swan 45s are also holding their Swan 45 Gold Cup in Cowes in early July with 21 boats expected so this event has provided the perfect warm up opportunity.
Tomorrow's final day start time has been brought forward to 10am to enable the big boats to complete four races, weather permitting.