Boats have been returning to Cowes Yacht Haven, back from the offshore race. With a 2.5x point co-efficient this race had the potential to provide a major upset in the results, but after four days of competition the Irish team hold an even more commanding lead, now up to 29.5 points. Hong Kong has regained second place, this time with a 25-point cushion over the leading French team, which in turn is just 5 points ahead of GBR Red and 15 points ahead of France Yellow in fifth.

Hong Kong and Ireland scored equal points in the offshore race with the former’s Rockall III winning the small boat class while the latter’s marinerscove.ie claimed the mid-sized class.

On the water Rockall III was first home in the whole fleet, crossing the line just to the west of the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour at 10:40:41 BST, winning her class by almost one hour on corrected time. While racing for Hong Kong, where he used to live, Rockall III’s owner Christopher Opielok is German. His crew is largely from Hong Kong but also includes two Dutch, one Irishman and three Australians. According to Opielok he bought his Corby 36 specifically to compete in the Rolex Commodores’ Cup, ‘we have been preparing for this for a long time. The boat clocked since delivery to us last year, 4,000 miles. We did a lot of offshore racing. We have four very good helmsmen. The navigation was very well prepared. We had a good tactician and I believe altogether with a very good boat, ended up with this result.’

Opielok said they faced stiff competition from the Irish team’s small boat, Roxy 6, ‘we focussed on sail trim and sailed extremely hard without any rest. We knew we could only beat Roxy upwind. We put all our effort into the 60-mile beat and then we tried to control them downwind. Luckily the tide went with us and pushed us even further than expected.’ The tide was particularly beneficial on the final run into the finish.

Simon Henning, owner of the Alice II from GBR White was delighted to have won the big boat division. His Farr 45, the biggest yacht in this year’s Rolex Commodores’ Cup does not have a favourable rating and they have not performed well in the inshore racing so far. Having to continue past Anvil Point and on to the East Shambles mark in Weymouth Bay, the Class 1 course at 191-nautical-miles was some 35 nm longer than the Class 3 version, which simply did an about-turn at Poole. Yet Alice II reached the finish line just under four minutes astern of Rockall III.

Alice led the 30-boat fleet out of the Solent in the strongest conditions of the race and enjoyed a fantastic blast down to the Owers, the easternmost mark of the course, to the southeast of Selsey Bill. ‘We saw 24-25 knots [of wind] and we were surfing up to 17 several times – it was lovely,’ commented Henning. Thanks to this they caught the tide turning at the Owers and from there never looked back. Despite the wind dropping to five knots this morning, they claimed the big boat class by a margin of 1 hour 20 minutes on corrected time.

Aside from torrential rain yesterday afternoon, conditions were not as bad as had been forecast. In the southwesterly breeze the sea was being kicked up by the wind-against-tide on the first beat out of The Solent and apart from the overfalls off St Catherine’s Point, the southern tip of the Isle of Wight, it was generally considered a pleasant race.

‘It was great fun – the course had a fabulous variety,’ commented Anthony O’Leary, who’s Ker 39 Antix corrected out to be second amongst the big boats. ‘Every corner we went around it seemed that the tide was against us, but that was part of plan to give us a varied course with all the options and all the challenges – and there were plenty. Going into Poole Bar in the middle of the night and the Anvil in the dark is a challenge but thankfully we got away and managed to hold the thing together.’

O’Leary was thankful that the Irish team had cumulatively posted a solid result in this high scoring race. ‘You could easily lose the regatta if you had a disaster and in that respect it is certainly satisfying. But there is still plenty to do and there are still plenty of points available. We’ll keep on chipping away.’

David Dwyer’s marinerscove.ie maintained the impeccable Irish performance, first home in the mid-sized class, although by the slender margin of three and a half minutes over Anthony Day’s Blondie IV. Tactician on the Irish boat, Andy Beadsworth, commented that, ‘it was a really good race and it was nice to finish relatively early today.’ The team enjoyed spending most of the night racing in company with the big boats. ‘It wasn’t that lumpy. We hardly had any water over the deck!’ said Beadsworth, adding that he had tried to get some sleep only to be awoken when he overheard the rest of the crew about to make decisions on deck.

Finishing behind Rockall III in the small boat class was Bernard Moureau’s JND 35 Gaia in France White. Tactician Alex Mercier said that they are improving with every race aboard their new boat. ‘The start was a bit improvised but we were able to place ourselves well and to maintain a good position during the entire night and this morning as well.’ They are still discovering Gaia but have found it goes well under spinnaker.

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