Cowes Week 2022, Race 1

July 30, 2022

Today was the first day of Cowes Week 2022. Because of the Covid pandemic Winsome missed 2020 and 2021, so 3 years ago was our last Cowes Week.
Expectations were high because Winsome did quite well this year up until now: 2nd at the RORC Easter Challenge, 1st in the Round the Island Race an again 1st place in the Channel Race. As in previous years we had two days of training before Cowes Week, the second day with the famous Campbell Field. We were looking forward to finally compete against Whooper in our class. Whooper is the boat that won almost all races in her class in Cowes Week the last several years and also Black Class overall.

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The weather was great on this Saturday, the first Cowes Week day, 12-18 knots of SW wind and sunshine! The start was on the RYS line up wind to the West with at first a little tide with us from the East, later on from the West. We decided to start this first race not to aggressively, but after a few tacks we were in front of our fleet, rightfully so because we are the highest rated boat in our Class. First at the 1st Mark and after that it was our duty to expand our lead. The second leg was a reach with spinnaker S1 in the direction of Portsmouth, a gibe at the 3rd mark, then with the wind fully behind us with the spinnaker into the East Solent. We never saw our competitors again, but it did not feel all that comfortable because we did not know if our lead was big enough. After the start we lost sight of Whooper, but was it good enough? The last leg was tacking from the East Solent to the Breakwater finish line , with the tide with us and 16-20 kts of wind. We finished first in our Class, line honors! But was the gap with Whooper and the others big enough? Whooper finished roughly 12.30 minutes behind us, and just 30 seconds on corrected time. A close call, but we won! First day, 1st place!

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As always we celebrated a first place with Pol Roger Champagne from Harry that was, this time, already chilled in the refrigerator of the Grand Banks of Aster and D-J.

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We were quite pleased with our tactics and also with our maneuvers, because some of us worked on unfamiliar positions in the boat.
Lets see what tomorrow will bring!

D-J.