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RORC
The immaculately sailed J Lance 12 was crowned IRC European Champion for 2018. The French J/112e skippered by Didier le Moal seemed never to put a foot wrong in this week-long regatta run from our Cowes base. Le Moal and Frederic Bouvier are respectively President and Sales Manager of J Composites, European builder of the J/Boats range, and the crew consisted of navigator Nicolas Lunven, the reigning Solitaire du Figaro champion and a justifiably renowned weather routeur, Christophe and Cyrille Cremades, Jean François Nevo, Jean-Michel Roux and Cyrille Teston who have all sailed with le Moal for many years. This is a characteristic of many of the French crews we see in our races: teams stay together year on year and as a result keep on steadily improving. Run concurrently within the IRC Europeans was the RORC
Commodores’ Cup, the three-boat team championship for Corinthian crews. The winners were the Celtic Team consisting of Andrew Williams’ Ker 40 Keronimo, Jean-Eudes Renier’s JPK 1080 Shaitan and the First 40 Adventurer, chartered this week to Scottish adventurer Jock Wishart. For team captain Wishart this was the culmination of two years’
planning but many previous years’ attempts to win: ‘All the hard work has paid off, although I would have liked to have won IRC2 as well. It became more and more evident as we came through that we had done a lot of work and thought it through. ‘The crew work was brilliant, consistently on the podium in all
for a week-long regatta with 11 races with a full programme of pre-race measurement plus safety checks for compliance with Offshore Special Regulations. For the first three days conditions were light and fickle but the breeze settled on day four creating the classic choppy sea conditions the Solent is known for with 12-15kt SW wind against a strong ebb tide. Storm Hector in the middle of the week brought a 20-25kt south-
westerly for the Round the Island Race. By the time the fleet reached the Needles the tide had turned against them whipping up a short, sharp seaway for beautiful surfing conditions as they made their way east towards St Catherine’s Point. For many of the boats this was the first heavy-air racing of the
season and while it was a tough passage against a strong current the smiles on all the finishers’ faces arriving at the marina showed how much they had enjoyed the experience. In the IRC European Championship it was a battle between Mike
Bartholomew’s GP42 Tokoloshe II and J Lance 12, both of whom were dominating their respective classes IRC1 and 3. Tokoloshe won seven out of 11 races to win IRC Class 1 and J Lance 12 won six to take IRC3, but the difference in fleet size turned the overall result in le Moal’s favour. Interestingly, the top three positions in IRC1 were all taken by Fast40s which must be encouraging for the longterm future of the class. Last word to Didier le Moal: ‘Our priority was to win our class,
but this is fabulous – I didn’t expect that result. It concludes the wonderful week we’ve had in the Solent. If you enjoy racing, we have been in paradise. The sun, light winds, heavy winds, big tides – everything you could expect to enjoy from racing we’ve had. ‘Especially, with Nicolas, we of course had a very, very good
navigator, probably one of the best in the world right now; to be fast is one thing, but to be fast in the right direction is always better!’
A Welshman writes As a proud Welshman who spent three higher education years in Cardiff I was delighted to have been invited by Cardiff Council for the Volvo Ocean Race leg 10 prizegiving dinner two days before the start of the penultimate leg to Gothenburg. Not only did it give me the chance to compare the race villages of Newport Rhode Island and Cardiff but also provided the opportunity to see how the principality had developed the waterfront area that has been created by the building of a barrage between Cardiff docks and Penarth. The spectacular tidal rise and fall in the Bristol Channel is the
The longer courses of the Commodores’ Cup were probably not unduly daunting to the captain of the victorious Celtic Team Jock Wishart (right). The hugely energetic supporter of Scottish sailing cut his teeth onboard Lionheart in the 1980 America’s Cup and has a CV that includes ‘walks’ to the North Pole, rowing to the North Pole, rowing the Atlantic (obviously, a man has to practise), all while raising tens of thousands of pounds for children’s charities
of the classes – it was consistency, consistency, consistency. This win is something I’ve been dreaming about for a long time.’ Making a comeback in the results after a poor start was the GBR
RORC Team consisting of Andrew McIrvine’s First 40 La Réponse, Tom Kneen’s JPK 1180 Sunrise and Ed Fishwick’s Sunfast 3600 Redshift Reloaded to finish second overall followed by the Nether- land’s Team Orange in third overall. The Solent served the full gamut of wind and weather alongside
strong spring tides. On day two the Round the Island Race, around the Isle of Wight, was abandoned soon after the start when the wind disappeared and was replaced by two windward-leeward courses in late in the afternoon. In the middle of the week Storm Hector which passed over the UK caused the offshore race to be replaced by the re-run Round the Island Race; race officer Stuart Childerley was very patient throughout the week and did a great job juggling the pro- gramme to suit the weather to deliver consistently good racing. Thirty-one boats representing eight countries arrived in Cowes
60 SEAHORSE
second highest in the world so recreational use of the waters around this coastline is very limited. Sailing activity is enjoyed further down the coast at Mumbles, further west at Milford Haven and in the beautiful seaside towns like Tenby and Saundersfoot. However, the barrage has now given Cardiff an inland waterway playground they can be proud of and one of the most famous races in the world was endorsing it with its presence. This was the first time in a decade that the Volvo Ocean Race
had returned to UK waters and it was Cardiff that had made the not insignificant financial commitment to bring the race back to its roots. The city, representing the whole of Wales, did an excellent job of making the sailors feel welcome. Glorious weather for the week of the stopover encouraged spectators to come out in force and visitor targets to the race village were smashed and the whole venture deemed a huge success. Cardiff and indeed Wales are not afraid to invest to bring big
events to the region; in 2010 it was the Ryder Cup and last year the Champions League final was held in the Millennium Stadium – the home of Welsh rugby. Their soccer team also recently gained promotion to the Premier League, turning the worldwide spotlight firmly on Cardiff. Through the building of the barrage Cardiff is now truly a waterfront city and investment in sailing events is set to continue; the Volvo stopover just showed what could be achieved. As I said, a proud Welshman. Eddie Warden-Owen, CEO
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POLLY POLAR
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