News - 2012

12:00 Monday 6 Aug 2012 Rupert HolmesRupert Holmes gleans top advice from three hugely successful Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week stalwarts

Rupert Holmes gleans top advice from three hugely successful Aberdeen Asset Management Cowes Week stalwarts with more than half a century of combined experience…

Graham Bailey is one of Cowes Week’s most successful long-term competitors. He's had 19 class wins, plus one Black Group and two White Group overall wins. An impressive record!:

 “Do everything correctly: from the moment you wake up ‘til the time you have signed off. Deal with whatever is in front of you in the best way you know how. After signing off, of course you are at liberty to do some things incorrectly, such as fall asleep at dinner.

“Leave your mooring in good time but not too early. Study the starts before yours from a distance, but you can only learn from those starting up to 30 minutes earlier, since the tide is in constant flux.

“Write the course down correctly and work our a system to check and double check so any navigational error is a matter for shared responsibility.  

“As a general rule, sail the course, not the fleet. You may need to engage in boat to boat combat at times but keep the big picture in mind and be prepared to be brave if you think the fleet is getting it wrong.

“Keep checking the horizon. You need to spot any big wind changes, converging fleets and shipping bound in or out of Southampton as early as possible. If there is going to be a problem you should be able to spot it at least 15 minutes early and position accordingly.

“Never, ever, ever give up. So often a two, three or four hour race is decided in the last mile – particularly if Norris lies between you and the finish line, or if there is a transitional sea-breeze scenario.”

Local sailor Kevin Downer advises competitors to watch the wind and pace themselves:

“This is especially important with struggling sea breezes – one race we went from last to first, back to last and then finished first. The crucial decision was tacking back to the finish against the tide from West Ryde Middle buoy. The rest of the fleet headed to the Island shore before short tacking off Norris. We could see the wind was already dying there, but was still blowing near the Bramble, so we sailed in that direction, before tacking towards the finish, staying in the last of the dying breeze.

“Don’t celebrate your first race win! That’s what we did one year after winning our first race and were absolutely gutted when we were ninth the following day – it may have cost us winning White Group overall.”

Colin Simonds was selected for the 1980 Olympic sailing team (although didn't take part as a result of the RYA Council's decision to acquiesce to the then government's request to boycott the Moscow games) and is a past winner of the SB20 (formerly SB3) Nationals:

“You can expect to get into trouble at times, but keep thinking and working – at Cowes there are as many ways out of trouble as ways into it. In the SB20 we’ve had top five results even after being worse than 40th an hour into the race. On one race some years back Ben Ainslie got past us an hour after the start, but we hung on and won by going a slightly different route. Above all, keep focused and have fun!”