Race Report - Household Division YC Regatta (25 July)
- Class Captain
- 5 minutes ago
- 5 min read
It’s been a few weeks since my last race report! Two weeks ago, my fair excuse was the Round the Island Race, where no Daring racing took place. However, I was remiss last weekend in not reporting on our stellar racing under the RTYC committee vessel alongside a healthy fleet of Dragons and Etchells.
18-19 July (RTYC, Cowes Keelboat Championship)
In brief, a total of fifteen (!) Darings turned out at various points of the weekend, including the season debut of Divison Belle under Charles Hewitt. Twelve boats raced Saturday and thirteen on Sunday under blue skies and consistent (albeit consistently light and variable) winds.
Four races yielded four different winners—Dynamite, Dolphin, Dauntless (with guest helm Anthony O'Leary), and Darling—highlighting the fleet's competitive depth. Honorable mention goes to Chris Preston’s Destroyer, whose scoreline of 2-2-2-6 would have put her right in contention had there been an overall weekend trophy!
The RTYC race committee ran a very efficient, professional weekend which had the potential to be very complex, and should be roundly congratulated.
Delicious (#17, ex-Deinos)
The Daring Association was pleased to hear through the grapevine about the status of No. 17. Spotted by Jamie Clark sailing in France last year with 5.5m insignia on the sail, she has now been confirmed to be in new hands in Brittany, is well-cared for, and renamed "Delicious".
The committee was delighted recently to have the Ratzel family, owners of Ossian (ex-Double Knot) join the Association. To that same aim, a message has been sent to the new owners of Delicious to invite them to stay in touch through the Association.
Household Division Regatta
While Sunday’s racing was sadly abandoned due to strong winds and a heavy sea state—with an abundance of caution applied ahead of Cowes Week—the fleet experienced the full gamut of conditions on Saturday, ensuring the weekend was far from a loss.
The Household Division Regatta, held annually on the Saturday before Cowes Week, comprised two races this year. With low water around 15:30 and the first start at 12:15, the tide turned during the afternoon while the wind built from a shaky south-westerly into a much stiffer sea breeze later on.
Race One
In hindsight, the first race felt like a warm-up. Starting from the RYS line, we headed west to the first racing mark in Gurnard Bay (Polly’s Challenge). With the ebb tide still running hard, boats fought fiercely for the pin end, where Darling nailed perhaps the best start at the ODM.
We aboard Finesse—racing with a first-time Daring helm—had been practicing down-tide toward Gurnard and only just made it back in time. We were met by a solid wall of boats approaching the ODM. With nowhere to go, we were OCS, narrowly avoided racing incidents, and had to restart at the back of the fleet.
Offshore paid on the first leg with the ebb, though light and shifting air could be played up the channel. Crucially, we had to avoid overstanding the marks inshore.
After the first mark, we ran downwind to the Gurnard cardinal before heading back up to the yellow mark before Gurnard Ledge (Cowes Yacht Haven). I struggle to remember many of the major moves though before the front of the fleet compressed significantly around the start of the final leg, with the lead six boats all within touching distance as they bore away and hoisted into the foul tide for the run back to Cowes.
Darling and Dauntless rounded first, going further inshore. Finesse was looking for cleaner air a few lengths further out. Darius was inshore too, in third behind Dauntless and Darling. Destroyer and Doublet were not far behind.
The run was carried out on Starboard throughout, which meant that to "roll" a boat you needed to be inshore. There was less foul tide to be found inshore, but possibly less wind. Dauntless had speed, slipping through the water magically, and tried a move on Darling approaching Egypt Point. However, she never managed to break clean ahead to capitalise, and on the final approach to RYS languished somewhat in soft air.
Darius clipped the rocks off Gurnard reasonably far inshore, damaging her otherwise strong chances. On Finesse, having watched Darius ground, we stayed slightly further out for better breeze and depth safety. We drew level around Egypt Point but struggled to maintain clean air under attack from Doublet.
Late in the leg, Doublet dived offshore for the biased line end, looking dangerous as a fresh line of breeze carried her up from behind. The finish was touch-and-go: Finesse took the win in the middle by just one second over Doublet offshore, with Darling taking third inshore two seconds later. The top six boats finished within twenty seconds after 46 minutes of tight racing.
Ed. It's worth noting that Finesse had a clean bottom this weekend, having just been launched, and a good set of sails. We tried our hardest to throw it away repeatedly though!
Race Two
With the wind building, we started on a run to the east roughly 30 minutes later. Finesse had the initial advantage, but boats hugging the breakwater inshore made gains. After gybing away from the breakwater, Darling just did enough to convince Finesse of an inside overlap rounding the downwind mark at Royal London.
After a tight rounding in the ebb tide caused Darling to touch the mark, she protested Finesse. A hasty drop and penalty turn ensued for us amid oncoming traffic with spinnakers flying. We rejoined mid-fleet as Darling streaked away on Port gybe toward the Brambles bank.
By the rounding at Ben F Wood, the order was (I believe) Darling–Doublet–Dauntless–Destroyer. Gybing toward East Bramble, conditions escalated. The ebb was fading but the south-westerly was building, making parts of the downwind legs feel decidedly broachy. Gusts over 25 knots and averages above 20 knots later seemed significantly higher than most realised while on the water!
Darling decided to go higher than most, further South, and may have fallen foul of some of the last of the ebb in the channel as she lost her lead. Then, approaching the mark, she ended up too close to Dauntless to leeward and took a penalty turn, losing the lead.
The next beat from East Bramble to West Ryde Middle saw most boats cross early to the Ryde Middle bank to play the shifts. Finesse, displaying good boat speed in her first sail in three years, slipped through to round the weather mark first.
Darling and Doublet rounded second and third, doing a bear-away set onto Starboard and staying higher than Finesse while Dauntless and Destroyer did a gybe-set, going further North. Nobody could see the mark initially, which was a yellow racing mark further yet than East Bramble on the Lee-on-Solent shore.
Aboard Finesse, we felt confident in our navigation until we realised the yellow mark we were aiming for was actually a tall inflatable belonging to a local dinghy club, with our actual mark half a mile further south! Dauntless, half a mile further north, was even more dismayed when they saw us gybe and head south.
Cue Finesse’s third attempt to throw the race: having arrived ahead of Darling and Doublet, we rounded to Starboard. Once we had settled on the beat, Mike Greville on his way into the mark hailed to inform us we had rounded the wrong way! We hastily doubled back, cursing ourselves, and settled into fourth behind Darling, Doublet, and Dauntless.
Pure boat speed continued to pay, however. One by one, Finesse overhauled the fleet on the beat back to Goodall Roofing on the Ryde Middle bank. Doublet threatened on the short final run after Finesse rounded wide and was held up from tacking, but as the boats separated, a small header allowed Finesse to cross her bows and hold on for the win.
Congratulations to Peter Cunningham, on his first weekend sailing Darings, for two race wins and the HDYC Chevrons Cup.
(And many thanks to Violeta for the loan of her boat)