SKANDIA Cowes Week, the world’s biggest yacht racing regatta, produced a memorable spectacle on day two yesterday as nearly 900 yachts in 37 classes raced in light winds on a scorching hot day on the Solent.
Tactics at Cowes are never easy and this was no exception as skippers battled tricky light winds with plenty of holes to catch the unwary. One skipper who came through unscathed, but only just, was the director of the Volvo Ocean Race,Glenn Bourke, the three-time former Laser class world champion from Australia, who notched up his second successive win in the 1720 sportsboat class.
Bourke, at the helm of Yachts & Yachting, tracked round in second and third place and was in danger of slipping to fourth at the close as the breeze died and boats got swept back in the tide, but he found what he needed just in time. “The breeze just crapped out but we were the grateful recipients of a tiny little puff that pulled us through and we got ahead,” he said.
Bourke is loving racing at Cowes, having already won the 1720 national championship this summer. “The standard of sailing is really quite good,” he said. “The standard of rules knowledge is not so good, but there are quite a few good natural sailors — that’s for sure.”
Meanwhile, Sam Davies, at the helm of a Figaro onedesign also sponsored by Skandia, produced a creditable performance in the first leg of the gruelling Solitaire du Figaro grand prix, finishing the 400-mile stage from Les Sables d’Olonne, France, to Bilbao-Gexto in Spain, 25th out of 42 skippers and the fourth best newcomer to the Figaro fleet. The race was won by Yann Eliès, of France, on Groupe Générali Assurances.