Everyone woke to a pleasingly brisk easterly breeze this morning and the Skandia Cowes Week starting gun is already firing but can all of the classes get around their shortened courses before the wind falls light?

Currently there is around 8-13 knots of wind out of the east, depending on where you observe it. The ybw.com/Met Office service is indicating a slight increase in wind by 1300, with it veering slightly south of east. Eleven classes are away and the rest are in the stack like aircraft on final approach at Heathrow, although the race officers will not have appreciated the need to issue a general recall to the J-Sprit fleet at 1110, due to over-eagerness and under-estimation of the building flood tide sweeping them down onto the line. The sense of urgency comes from a forecast that is predicting a gradual fall in gradient wind strength as it veers to the south this afternoon. Temperatures are expected to reach 27C at Cowes.

For one class the day didn’t dawn quite as brightly as the blazing sunshine should have suggested. The Contessa 32s found themselves blocked in by the grounding of a large vessel off their temporary base at UKSA moorings on the River Medina. With a scheduled start at 1130 the yachts are apparently doing their best to wriggle through and out to the Solent.

Today sees a scheduled change of hands among the Cowes Combined Clubs race officers with the Royal Yacht Squadron’s John Grandy taking the role of principal race officer, allowing the Royal Thames Yacht Club’s Malcolm McKeag to take a well-earned break after three days of difficult calls.

More news later.