Luna Rossa. Picture by Jennifer Burton.
COWES WEEKTHE four large yachts in IRC Class Zero raced in a round the Island challenge on Tuesday.
At the start, Niklas Zennstrom's mini maxi Ran was a nose ahead and to leeward of Flavio Favini's Luna Rossa and Roger Sturgeon's Rosebud, and soon pulled clear ahead as the fleet headed towards the Needles.
As the fleet powered back up the eastern Solent, however, Karl Kwok's 80ft Beau Geste was well ahead of her rivals and tantalisingly close to the record time set by Mike Slade's 100ft supermaxi ICAP Leopard last year.
Finishing just before 2.30pm she was just 2 minutes 10 seconds outside the record, but also failed to save her time on Luna Rossa and Ran.
The gusty conditions suited the multihull fleet, with Phil Cotton's Seacart 30 Buzz completing her 27.8 mile course in just two hours and 14 minutes - more than one-third faster than predicted by the course setters.
This performance, however, was not sufficient to take a win on corrected time - an accolade that went to Ben Goodland's Roo.
There’s huge enthusiasm for the revived Quarter Ton class which consistently offers very close racing and attracts some of the country’s best sailors.
Mike Dixon, sailing Roger Swinney's Ayanami, made the best start of the fleet on Monday.
Four minutes into the race Louise Morton’s Espada had pulled clear ahead of Ayanami, so when Dixon broached in the increasingly gusty breeze his boat rounded up clear astern of Morton, allowing Espada to consolidate her lead on the water at this stage of the race.
However, in a nail-biting finish it was Rob Gray's Aguila that took line honours, just five seconds ahead of Bullet, with Espada crossing the line 17 seconds later.
Aguila's narrow lead was insufficient to save her time on Howard Sellars and Mike Till’s Bullet, who won on corrected time, 16 seconds ahead of Runaway Bus.