weather and to understand exactly
where you are in the tidal ow
sequence and how that will evolve.
- ON THE WATER
Everyone talks about the importance
of getting the basics right, but it’s easy
to be complacent and few boats get
everything spot on. For a start, don’t
try to skipper the boat or navigate
from the helm – it’s impossible for one
person to do both jobs e ectively.
It’s also really important to triple check
the course and make this a collective
responsibility. It should be written down
in several places, rather than depending
on a single piece of paper that could get
blown away. It’s well worth getting out
45 minutes early to watch for
wind changes, trying to identifypatterns. is also gives a chance to
practise manoeuvres and con rm
the boat is correctly set up.- STARTS
While the race ocers try to organise
as many xed-line starts as possible,
with racing from a committee boat the
challenges are very di erent and Cowes
Week starts take more evaluation and
The Cowes Week points series now runs for only
seven days, Saturday 10 August to Friday 16
August, with a prizegiving that evening. Racing
continues on Saturday 17 August for the Cowes
Town Regatta and your entry fee covers this
racing as well, which has a separate prizegiving on
the Saturday evening. There are no Red Arrows
this year as the team is in the USA, but the RAF
Typhoons will fly a demonstration at 1945 and
the fireworks will round o the evening at 2130.
For the first time ever, the Rolex Fastnet Race
is taking place before Cowes Week. Although
the oshore event starts on the Saturday
(rather than the usual Sunday), in recognition
that it’s a tight window to return to the Solent
after the prizegiving in Plymouth and converta boat back to inshore racing mode, boats
that have completed the Fastnet and made a
genuine eort to return can ask for average
points on the opening day of Cowes Week.
Also new this year is a GRP Classics class,
recognising that it’s often dicult for older
boats to compete with newer designs when
racing inshore under IRC. For this year it’s for
yachts designed before 1974, though Mead
is looking at introducing a class next year for
boats designed between 1975 and 1983.
Multihulls will also return to the event after an
absence of several years. At the time of writing
10 Diam 24s are expected, along with around
half a dozen MOCRA entries. The opening
weekend will see a SailGP series event - see p28.KEY CHANGES FOR 2019
PHOTOS: PAUL WYETH/COWES WEEK; ALEX IRWIN/SPORTOGRAPHY.TV; INGRID ABERYAugust 2019 Yachts & Yachting 23