With 15 boats on the start line, Darings made up the largest fleet in the second of the Red Funnel Cowes Keelboat Championship series last weekend.

All racing was cancelled at noon on Saturday but two races for the Darings, Dragons and Etchells took place on Sunday from a committee boat start between Hill Head and Seascope.

Tim Street, chief race officer for the RYS, surprised yachtsmen with his decision to start racing to schedule on Sunday, as the day had dawned with little promise of wind. But the light westerly wind he found over the Bramble Bank came good and filled in, building to a Force 3 which gave excellent racing in glorious weather when the sun came out.

In the Daring fleet Dauntless’s crew backed a hunch of their own and decided to stay right while Destroyer, Devius and Darling chose the left and Audax sailed up the middle, managing to pick up a place or two on small shifts. At the top of the beat, Destroyer and Audax led ahead of Devius and Darling.

On the run, Dauntless again chose the right while Destroyer and Devius sailed down the middle. On the next beat nearly every boat chose the right, with Audax still in the lead and Dauntless overtaking Destroyer near the windward mark.

After rounding in the lead, Audax failed to hoist a spinnaker, allowing Dauntless to take the lead and leaving Audax and Destroyer virtually even at the leeward mark. Dauntless sailed on to win but Destroyer made a better leeward rounding and covered Audax to take second place with Audax in third.

A good sea breeze settled in for the start of the second race. Dauntless, Loup Garou VIII and Audax established comfortable or at least defendable leads over the following boats. Diamond, laying in eighth, tacked off to the left to find the favourable current. As Dauntless finished first, Diamond came in from the left to take second, comfortably overtaking nearly half the fleet. Loup Garou VIII finished third.

Overall Results

Darings Race 1 – 1 Dauntless (Peckham, Porter and Carver), 2 Destroyer (Hardy, Leask and Mathews), 3 Audax (Bilbo and Haines)

Race 2 – 1 Dauntless, 2 Diamond (A. Miller), 3 Loup Garou VIII (Clark, Stratton and Preston)

Dragons Race 1 – 1 Rackham ( R. Gray), 2 1087, 3 Stampede ((Payne, Mortimer, Richardson and Ross). Race 2 – 1 Stampede, 2 Jerboa IV (Wilkinson-Cox and Vass), 3 Chaotic ( G. Jordan)

Etchells Race 1 – 1 Bushfire (Jervis Tilly), 2 Icing on the Cake (G. Skinner), 3 GBR 1075. Race 2 – 1 GBR 1075, 2 Icing on the Cake, 3 Bushfire