Falmouth and Cowes Classics

Falmouth Classics had it's 30th birthday in June and was bigger than ever. Cabrach a plastic Twister from 1980 is really a cheat classic, but they still let us join in. We get scratch class racing with a fleet of local Twisters and parade with everything from Brixham Trawlers to sailing gigs. The quote of the event as a local gaffer sailed through our lee pointing as high and footing faster despite being exactly the same overall length was "I thought gaff rig was supposed to be slow". We also flew the Weymouth burgee at Cowes Classics last week. Here the racing is more serious and apart from the first day they supplied more wind. Good fun playing with mid Solent tides, ferries, tankers and hundreds of competitors. The highlight though was free tea and cake after racing every day. The return trip home was bouncy, full tide against a F4-5 SSW with rain squalls last Saturday. We couldn't decide which we disliked more the Old Harry overfalls or the St Alban's ledge. We arrived just as the Merlin Rockets were finishing their third race in benign conditions. The standard of that fleet was impressive. As we packed up class 6 of the Cowes - Weymouth JOG fleet who'd left an hour after us were arriving, so we gave ourselves and the windvane self steering a pat on the back. Martin Pascoe

Submitted on 27th July 2017