The penultimate day of Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week was a more gentle day than those earlier in the week, starting with bright sun and a gentle breeze that built to 15-18 knots. It also saw incredibly tight racing across dozens of classes and a surprise early winner in the XOD class.

The overall winner of IRC Class 0 was decided by a margin of just one second, while today’s race for the Victory class was also incredibly close, with the first nine boats finishing within 95 seconds.

Similarly, just 49 seconds separated the first three boats in IRC Class 3 on corrected time at the end of their three-hour race. David Franks’ Mat 1010 Matilda revelled in the lighter conditions, taking her first win of the regatta, “We had a good position on the start and then had freedom to go almost exactly where we wanted – tactician Graham Sunderland did a superb job,” he said. “Matilda is a fast boat in light airs and we could see we were doing well, which gave us the encouragement to carry on pressing hard.”

The racing for overall points for Black Group classes ended today, allowing those starting the 605-mile Rolex Fastnet Race on Sunday to have a day clear to prepare. The week’s closest racing has arguably been in IRC Class 0, where half the boats in the fleet have scored podium finishes and only six points separated the top five boats going into the final race.

Two TP52s –Charles Dunstone’s Team Origin and Johnny Vincent’s Pace – were first and second over the line, with Pace holding a 41 second advantage on corrected time. For a few minutes it looked as though that would secure the overall class win over Team Origin, on a complex countback. However, the fifth boat across the line, Piet Vroon’s Ker 46 Tonnerre de Breskens, finished one second ahead of Pace on corrected time. That still left Pace and Team Origin tied on points, but Dunstone’s firsts against Vincent’s single win left Team Origin as the overall winner.

A class act

IRC Class 1 was similarly tight at the top – with the first three places separated by three points at the start of their final race and nine of the 24 entries having scored a podium result at some point during the week. Today the Leask Family’s Swan 42 Magical Mystery Tour was first to finish, but Michael Bartholomew’s lower rated King 40 Tokoloshe pipped them to first place by four seconds on corrected time. Bartholomew’s third win of the event secured the overall win, two points ahead of Bernard Gouy’s Ker 39 Inis Mor, who took third place today, 47 seconds behind Magical Mystery Tour.

The top of Class 2 turned into a super-tight battle between three J-Boats. The start of the day saw Duncan McDonald and Phil Thomas’s new J/111 Shmokin’ Joe on 10 points, Ian Matthews’ J/122 Jinga on 11 and another J/111, Paul Heys’ Jenga 7, on 12 points. These three boats took the top three places in the class in today’s race, in exactly that order on corrected time

Today’s third place for Iain Kirkpatrick’s X37 Fatjax in IRC Class 3 was sufficient to hang on to first place overall by two points, ahead of Bernard Olesinski’s X40 Xinska, who finished second today. The Layfield family’s J/39 Sleeper was able to discard today’s 11th place and take third overall.

In Class 4 Tom Snowball’s First 34.7 Mongoose held a three-point lead over Peter Schofield’s HOD 35 Zarafa at the start of the day. However Mongoose and Zarafa scored seventh and eighth places respectively, although the former held her overall lead. A third for John Howell’s Dehler 36 Alaris lifted her to the same overall score as Zarafa, with the latter taking second place on countback. Adam Gosling’s Corby 30 Yes! took Class 5 with a day to spare, having kept the boat in one piece despite the challenging weather. His worst result was Tuesday’s third place.

In the J/109 fleet Adam and Helen Wright’s Velvet Elvis has again been the boat to beat this year. Starting the day only three points behind Velvet Elvis, the Calascione/Ripard family’s Yeoman had the opportunity to beat her for the overall class win today. However, Stanley, Walker and Williams’ Levante won by a substantial margin, with Yeoman second. Velvet Elvis finished fourth, just 8 seconds ahead of M Boyle’s Shiva, to retain the overall lead by just one point.

It was also tight at the top of the Quarter Ton class, with Mark Lees’ Panic starting the day two points ahead of Liz Rushall’s Whiskers, despite Panic having been forced to retire with a broken rudder on Sunday. Today was a good one for Rushall, who took her third win of the week, but a second place for Lees saw him retain the overall lead.

White Group

Also ending today in White Group were the J/80 Sportsboats, and some other White Group Classes.

The J/80 Class raced a one discard series at Cowes Week 2011, and going in to the final race Ian Atkins and Boats.com was leading on 13 points, William ‘Goldie’ Goldsmith and his Essex boys were in second place on 16 points in Exess and another young team from the South West, Henry Bomby’s Team Baltic were in third, juts one point behind on 17. So… the big question for the J/80 pundits on Friday morning was whether a lifetime of sailing experience (garnered largely on the Solent) would pay for Ian Atkins and his team, or would perhaps the two young teams snapping at his heels get the better of the Moustached Maistro on his home turf?

Well… it would seem not.

Boats.com sailed what appeared from ‘off the water’ to be a strong, calm and confident race. They arrived second at the first windward mark but managed to get ahead and stay ahead of Team Baltic on the forst downwind leg and hold their place through the finish securing Ian Atkins and his team a creditable series win. An awesome job, well done. Team Baltic finished second, but a fourteenth place for Exess (the worst result of the week for this talented young team) could only secure third overall for Goldie and his boys.

Ian Atkins said ’This was one of the best Cowes Weeks I can remember. Someone told me that the wind averaged 20 knots over the week and so we have had some amazing racing in big breeze against great competition. We particularly enjoyed our daily dust-ups with the three young teams of Team Baltic and Exess along with Chris Taylor’s J.A.T.’

‘Incidentally’, he continued, ‘I ran into Adam Gosling, winner of Class 5 at Cowes Week this year. We recalled that the last time either of us had won Cowes Week was when we sailed together in the first ever J/39 in the UK back in 1991!’

Ian remains in recovery mode this week.