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20:52 Wednesday 6 Aug 2025 Gael Pawson/CWLDay 5: Flying Jenny wins Britannia Cup

The start line for the Britannia Cup. Photo Paul Wyeth/pwpictures.com

Sandy Askew’s Flying Jenny beat 23 of the highest rated IRC yachts competing at Cowes Week to lift the prestigious Britannia Cup. This followed lengthy postponements, especially for the smaller boats, while everyone waited patiently waited for a stable wind to materialise.

The day started with light variable winds, which meant all classes were postponed initially for two hours, with the White Group boats starting on the Squadron line postponed for three hours. Black Group got off at 1300, but White Group had a further lengthy wait for breeze.

The Swallows, on a Committee Boat start in Thorness Bay, also had a long wait for breeze, but got their first race away at 1410, the fleet then finished their second race on the Squadron line.

Eventually the wind arrived at the Squadron in time to start the first class, the SB20s, at 1415. Starting on the pin, the SB20s were tightly bunched with one boat a little too keen, resulting in an individual recall. In the Sportsboat class, which followed at 1420, Jo Richard’s Tigger was first across the line, with Anouk Collee’s Annabel to windward. As they headed up the beat, these two were the last boats to tack onto port, with Annabel tacking first as they headed to their first mark, Newtown East. The Sportsboat fleet has a real mix of entries this year, with the bigger boats making Tigger, an RS21-CR, look small, but she’s certainly not slow. As well as two FarEast 28Rs and two J/80s, the class includes an Open 7.50, a Cork 1720 and a VXOne.

Class detail

First off on the Committee Vessel 1 start line was the IRC Zero and Cape 31 class, who got away at 1300, followed by IRC1 at 1305. Heading west, their first mark was Tuakana Construction, their course then took them to Hamstead Ledge and West Lepe, Powder Byrne, Lymington Bank, Now Students, Circle Marine Insurance, The Boss before finishing on the Squadron Outer Finish Line.

The big guns were out for the first to finish in each class. First to be greeted by the reverberating sound in IRC Zero was Gladiator, with a healthy lead over Braveheart. These two were followed over the line by Coco de Mer from Performance Cruiser A. It was a spectacular sight to see the giants powering their way downwind past the keelboat fleets, making the XOD fleet look tiny. In the competition for the Britannia Cup, the adjusted results put the Cape 31 Flying Jenny ahead of Chris Frost’s sleek silver Carkeek 40 Amp Lifi, with Gladiator third.

In IRC2 there was a really good battle on the water between David Franks’ Leon, Rutker Krijger and Caroline Van Beelen’s Jack Rabbit and Adam Gosling’s Yes! Sailing aboard Yes! all week has been 14-year-old Leo Gosling. Leo finished 13th at the 2024 Optimist worlds and is now racing an ILCA. Today saw these three battling around the course, as they approached the first windward mark Yes! managed to get ahead as Leon and Jack Rabbit jostled for position round the mark, Leon snuck the inner berth, forcing Jack Rabbit to give them room, but on the hoist it was Jack Rabbit that got ahead. The three later crossed the line in short succession, Yes! first with Jack Rabbit hot on her heels, Leon just slightly further behind. Leon led the class by some margin with a clean sheet of firsts going into the day, but on corrected time it was Jack Rabbit that took the day’s win, Yes! second and Leon third.

Youth Day

Youth Day celebrates all the young sailors competing in Cowe Week. These range from young crews, like the crew on the Sonar Cowes Match Racing Blue, helmed by 17-year-old Will Bradley, all the crew are under 20 and the youngest is 16. They’ve been having a great week, currently lying second in class behind Richard Bailey’s Bertie. The Sonars are certainly having some tight racing too, looking very sharp off the start line. Today’s start attracted admiring comments from spectators watching from the Squadron.

Leading the XOD class are familiar faces and no strangers to winning Cowes Week, John Tremlett, Tim Copsey and Fraser Graham sailing Astralita, who finished second today behind Silhouette. However, fresh faces in the class are Abby Hire, Alex Paton, Kate and Tom Whamby from Lymington who are racing XL this week as part of the class’s Youth Bursary Scheme. The scheme pairs young crews up with boats, lending them a boat and funding their Cowes Week entry. Next year the aim is for more young crews to join the fleet, with bursary boats from each of the XOD divisions from Cowes, Yarmouth, Hamble, Itchenor, Lymington and Parkstone. 

XL finished 10th today on what was a long, light wind race which was eventually shortened. As we talked ashore, many of the class were still finishing. It was certainly a day to have a good result. ‘We’re the lightest boat by far but today was our weather and we were in the top 10 today,’ explains Abby. Tom describes today’s race: ‘We had a good start, we didn’t have a lane but we tacked off early into the shore out of the tide, we played the shifts very well, then it was a run back to the finish, we were glad they shortened the course.’ And what it’s like sailing the XOD? Kate laughs, ‘You can move the tiller and then you just have to wait for her to say, ‘yeah ok we will go,’ and then you go, but we really love the X fleet.’

Another good example of just how many young sailors there are competing across all the fleets, Jack Hartley has been sailing Osprey in the Sunbeam class, and yesterday he was trusted by owner Patterson with helming the boat with young crew Georgina Patterson and Luke Cross. Jack says: ‘That was my first day helming a keelboat, which I found very enjoyable but also a big change to the dinghies I usually sail at Itchenor. It was a lot more technical than I thought especially on the Sunbeam, constantly trying to keep on the heel to keep the boat going as fast as can be, it took a little bit of getting used to but I kind of got the hang of it by the end. It’s been really good, really competitive, really nice fleet and really cool doing the big navigation courses using a compass to find out bearings and find where the next mark is... The fleet got quite split up today because there were big lulls.’

Sailing in the J/70 fleet for their mini-series has been 21-year-old Arthur Farley, who’s campaigning for the Olympics in the ILCA class. Unfortunately, a collision when on starboard cut his racing short. ‘We were almost joint third, we were looking to stay on the podium and we’ve obviously got our redress but think we ended up fifth or something. I’ve only just started racing J/70s predominantly learning this stuff.’ His first Cowes Week was in a Flying 15: ‘Cowes Week is a really enjoyable one to do and usually it doesn’t clash for us, so I’ve done five.’

Tomorrow

Tomorrow the weather looks windy, with stronger, steadier south-westerly winds, with gusts in the mid to high 20s, the wind moving slightly right in the afternoon. The Mermaid, Victory and XOD classes will move onto the Committee Vessel 1 start line, with changes to the schedule to accommodate this.

It’s also Royal Navy Day, with a helicopter and Fairey Swordfish display at 7pm in the evening, see the shoreside programme here.