Cowes Week 2026 - Sat 1st - Day 1

We sat around all morning baking in the hot sun with no wind to cool you down or sail in.  The race committee raised the AP flag and announced a 2 hour delay while they waited for the sea breeze to kick in.

We motored out to the start line and off we went just after 14.00 into a Westerly force 5.  It was bordering on too much for Aquila with full rig and after discussing a reef, decided to leave it all up in the air.

The start was ok and we went over just after the gun whereas some boats were early and all drove down the line to the pin end and some were early over “OCS” or On Coarse Side forcing them to turn around ad go through the start once again.  We tacked away quickly to get clean air but it was out of the deep water where the tide was strongest so we lost out a little there.

The  beat up to the first mark was ok but we soon decided that the wind strength was too high for Aquila and a reef should have been put in.  However, we got round the first mark in touch with the fleet and made our up tide to the next.  This really killed us the wind dropped just after the boats in front got round and we were left sitting there.  The run home was interesting and once again we decided after putting the kite up , really really badly and very slowly, that it was to much and dropped it once again and goose winged it all the way home.

12 miles sailed in 2 hours 46 minutes and 42 seconds gave us 21st place in a fleet of 31.

The boat did ok, the crew must try harder.