Marginal weather calls are among the most difficult decisions to make at Skandia Cowes Week, even though competitors are expected to be self-sufficient.

Over the years Skandia Cowes Week has provided a huge variety of weather systems from flat calm days to 40-knot gales. Three years ago the conditions were at the top of the scale with two windy days in particular. Despite sinkings, dismastings and a lot of gear failure throughout the fleets, the show still went on.

Speaking with Stuart Quarrie, the director of the Cowes Combined Clubs, it seems that although it’s rare to abandon a race day, there have been times when it’s been very close. Given an annual average six sinkings during the past dozen years of the event, it’s not surprising there are concerns in extreme windy conditions.

Quarrie commented: “Actually, it’s not just about wind strength but wind strength and tidal conditions combined. If it’s wind with tide and relatively flat, 30-35 knots of wind is marginal for the big boats. If it’s wind against tide and it’s spring tides, then 25-30 knots is marginal.

“It’s a slightly different story however, for the dayboats but it does depend on the class. Some of these classes are quite happy to go out in 25 knots. On the other hand owners of older and more fragile boats want us to stop racing a little earlier. We do have a system for the day boats where we liaise with the class captains. If a class decides not to race it can ring me in the morning and let me know. If, on the other hand, it’s marginal and a class says it wants to race, we do have the power to over-ride that decision.”

The principal race officer makes the final decision whether or not to send the fleets out and Quarrie admits it’s a sobering experience. “Having boats out there that you know are struggling, and particularly on a day when you know a yacht has sunk and others haven’t been seen, is pretty stressful. Thankfully, during my time as director of CCC over the last six years there’s never been a loss of life caused by a sailing accident at Skandia Cowes Week.”

There are no rescue boats at the event as such, just four large RIBs which act as spotter boats. Quarrie added: “All the boats in the regatta are meant to be relatively self-sufficient – they’re either proper offshore boats or keelboats. We don’t want competitors to get the attitude that the rescue boat is out there so ‘we’ll go out even though we can’t cope.’ We want people to think, ‘Oh, it’s a bit windy out there, were not going racing because we wouldn’t be able to cope if things went wrong.’