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14:05 Thursday 13 Aug 2015 Sue Pelling/CWLSail for Victory – Janet Dee wins Royal Southern Ariel Trophy

Janet Dee, winner of the Royal Southern Ariel Trophy – photo Rick Tomlinson

Janet Dee sailing her 65 year-old Victory – Variety – has won the Royal Southern Ariel Trophy for the fastest female on the helm on Liz Earle Ladies Day.

Dee, from Portsmouth (the home of the 81 year-old Alfred Westmacott-designed Victory class) is no stranger to podium. She and her team on Variety took an overall class win last year and look set once again, to make a final challenge to defend their title. There are now just two points between the top four boats in class.

Chatting about how she and her team – Stephen Fry and Ian Perryman – won the Royal Southern Ariel Trophy in the tricky Solent conditions yesterday, Dee commented: “It was a challenging day from a starting point of view, with a huge tide and holey wind, so we executed a safe start. We then sailed a good course with a good line for the tide, a good line for land hazards, and we sailed fast and, most importantly, thanks to Stephen Fry, we navigated well.”

Built in 1950, Variety naturally has a bit of history. Dee added: “Her sail number is 57 so she is named Variety, as in Heinz 57. My father, who sadly passed away a couple of years ago, owned her originally but I sail her now. My father also bought my first Victory when I was born and named us both Janet, so we sailed against each other for many years. Janet then became the mould for the new glassfibre Victory boats, so they are all based on her.”

It is also great to see an original wood boat competing on equal terms against the new glassfibre versions. Developing/updating a class often runs the risk of grandfathering the original boats but thankfully, when the original boats still win, it proves the class did a good job in the development process.

Dee added: “It becomes more and more of a challenge to keep the old wood boats maintained as they get older and older. Therefore it is good to have introduced new glassfibre boats to the fleet otherwise it would be an aging fleet which is certainly not good for the class.”