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Visitors
‘Alexa’ and ‘Mrs Jones’ steal show at
Skandia
Cowes Week 2007
Cowes Week
changes meant that this year participants had to enter and pay for the whole
week whether they raced one race or eight. This, understandably, put off a
few Sigmas from racing the first weekend but nevertheless a creditable 13
turned up for the week including Alexa from Guernsey and, for the first
time, Mrs Jones from the Netherlands.
This was
the class’s inaugural year as part of the IRC fleet and our new rating of
.915 put us in Class 8 with, amongst others, the quarter tonners. Despite
both Workout and Shadowfax managing a top three position during the week,
light winds, flat seas and short courses were always going to favour the
smaller, optimised boats.
Disappointing, non-tactical courses characterised this year’s regatta but
the biggest frustration was left to Friday, the Sigmas last official day’s
racing, when the race officer, under instructions to have all boats back on
their moorings by 5.00 to ensure smooth organisation of the firework
display, abandoned racing in full view of a firm 15 knot sea breeze moving
up the Solent.
But the sun
shone and, needless to say, none of this stopped the crews partying.
Shadowfax’s reputation as, putting it politely, ‘revellers extraordinaire’
was not only dented but totally eclipsed by our friends from Holland who
‘raised the bar’ in all respects and still managed, as Solent virgins, some
very respectable performances on the water, ending up sixth placed Sigma .
However it
was Alexa, so close to winning in 2005, who pulled off a stunning comeback
in Thursday’s race to end up winning the week, a point ahead of Workout,
with Shadowfax in third place.
(Ed. note :
Confusion between the Association and Cowes Combined Clubs over the number
of discards applicable to the extracted Sigma results led to Workout being
incorrectly stated in the official results as winning Sigma.)
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