NEWS LETTER FROM COWES WEEK 1999
(By Robin Holland – CORAFIN)
Back home after Cowes Week! … all seems slightly unreal. Took the wife and kids shopping this morning; keep wanting to luff-up passing strangers in the street. Is that a brightly coloured spinnaker I see before me? … turns out to be a large umbrella. Race to get through shop door before lady wife; make it by half a boat length.
Ho hum!
Well the weather was a mixed bag. In sailing terms, we spent the whole week under the No1 Genoa apart from the first leg of the Wednesday race when it actually blew more than 20 knots at the start. The first three days were glorious with lots of sun and the Solent was the classic mass of coloured sails and blue skies. A couple of the days were a bit ‘drifty’ at times but on the whole we managed to sail fast most of the time.
There was no “windy” Tuesday or “stormy” Monday this year which meant two things. Firstly, this is conclusive evidence that there is global warming and, secondly, we got home with all our spinnaker gear intact for the first time ever.
The weather highlight of the week though must have been the most amazing Merak Rum Punch party ever in the history of the world. It rained … buckets, cats and dogs, sheets, open heavens…. take your pick. The sight of 60 Contessa sailors crammed onto three boats soaked to the skin, in a pitiful collection of assorted anoraks, wet T-shirts (thank you to all you girls) and sou’westers getting completely legless on Merak’s answer to aviation fuel, will not be forgotten in a long time.
The trouble was that the rain got in your drink and watered it down so a special request to Nick for little umbrellas in our drinks next year in case it happens again.
We had about 25 boats turn up and it was nice to see some new faces.
Welcome to Mike (Big Daddy) on Teela. For those of you who don’t know, Mike is a BA pilot and flies 757’s (I think) to places like Glasgow and Edinburgh. I have been on his flights several times and he has this wonderful line in moral blackmail where he tries top get indifferent business men to look up from their papers and watch the pretty girl doing her lifejacket demonstration (gosh! .. what sexist nonsense!!). He says something along the lines of ‘daddy would really appreciate it if you paid attention!’ .. and he says it in this really stern, pleading, threatening sort of way such that no-one can really disobey him. Wonder if he does it while he is racing?
It was also nice to see Mystic Sky. They are based at Rye and came round for the week. They normally race Channel handicap and have never been exposed to the full majesty of Contessa fleet racing. Hope we haven’t put them off!
Alan, the skipper, joined us in the cockpit of Corafin for a drink late on the first Friday night. By this time there was a gathering of disreputable characters, John McCann (Cosantes) , Kieth Feltham (Green Pepper) and some of his lady crew, the social misfits from Corafin and a couple of others whose names escape me. We got to talking about Corafin’s recent mishap when she was T-boned in the ROI race last month. This provoked the assembled ‘old hand’ skippers to tell their worst racing accident stories and they just got bigger and bigger! .. “you think your damage was bad, you should have seen the state of my boat .. etc., etc.”
All of a sudden Alan from Mystic Sky went very quiet, slightly pale and said he really better get back to his own boat. Can’t think why?
Alan .. we were only joking really!
The racing was good. I think this fleet is getting better all round and on a number of occasions not more than a few minutes separated the first 15 boats!
On Corafin we always work out where we would be if we were 5 minutes faster over the whole race. This is based on the idea that if you do 60 ‘things / manoeuvres’ during a race, then improving each one by 5 seconds would give us 5 minutes overall. This year it would put us near the top all the time and we were finishing in 10-13th place and only just beating half a dozen other boats home by a couple of minutes!
The main feature of the racing though has to be the controversy!
For those of you who don’t know there is special rule at Cowes week (13.6) that you can ‘motor clear of commercial shipping to avoid danger’. The intent is clearly to allow you to get out of the way of 200,000 tons of crude oil hanging a sharp left turn out of Southampton on a day when you can’t sail fast.
Well … Nick Bradley and the water warriors on Merak found themselves drifting in light airs at the finish of the first race. They drifted towards the line (along with about 6 other Contessas) teasing every drop out of the limp sails. As they got closer it was clear that they would hit Patricia, the Trinity House guard ship moored in Cowes Roads. Nick, being the good seaman that he is and putting the safety of his crew (or was it paintwork?) above all else popped on his engine, motored a few yards and drifted down the side of Patricia to the finish line.
Several others had to use their engines as well and motored home without bothering to finish. Nick, declared and then retired as this gave him a smaller penalty than being disqualified.
Later, rumour has it, Nick was drinking with several of his smart lawyer friends and they suggested that he invoke rule 13.6 and get his place back. This he did, argued it through the Race Committee and won a favourable decision!!
I cannot tell you the fun and games that ensued! Letters from the class captain, arguments in the bar, challenges to ‘Contessa 32 power boat’ races and a number of extremely unrepeatable jokes! I have had it suggested that we should put it on the web site and invite people to vote for or against!
Personally, we motor/sailed round the front of every anchored ship in the Solent last week to huge advantage; I can recommend it to you all, it is so much easier than tacking or kedging!
Good job we are all friends underneath.
Apart from that, Merak was pretty unbeatable most of the time. Somebody ought to do something about it.
We spent most of the week in a pitched battle with Green Pepper. Got the better of them on the last day and left them standing on the last leg, to finish 9th. Celebrated all the way back to Lymington the best result of all time for Corafin. Got home – rushed to Cowes week internet site to check result – OCS!!! Damn! Damn! Damn!
Green Pepper 4; Corafin 0. We will be back Kieth!
The social life this year had it’s moments. The BBQ and Captain’s party was blessed with a fine evening and a good band and we danced into the night. The Pig Roast and ‘Irish dancing thingy’ was a great success (maybe not for the pig?). We should do it more often. Award for biggest party animal goes to Ziggy from Polar Star who I am sure will formally apologise at some stage.
I have to say though, the Cocktail party is not winning a lot of supporters. My main complaint is that the sea front at Cowes is one of the finest panoramic views in the land with special, near religious, meaning to sailors and the Royal London YC stick us inside what appears to be a large garden shed with no view of anything? Next year my crew have said they will only go under duress. However, the nibbles were nice.
We have already touched on the Merak Rum Punch party and the weather. Ray Rouse was running around with his expensive new digital camera during the event and has now sent me lots of embarrassing pictures to publish on the website. These can be viewed here.
Those our my abiding memories – any one else want to write something and send it in I will publish.
Overall score this year 8 out of 10.