Cowes Week 2010 

It was six straight wins at Cowes week for the Arbitrator team, Graham and Stephen Bailey (not brothers) with David Heritage had the perfect winning formula, a well prepared boat with good sails and an experienced team who had only one thing on their minds, winning. Frequently starting away from the favored end on a heavily biased tidal line, boat speed and clean air would take Arbitrator gradually through the pack into a commanding position from where they never appeared troubled, and downwind they flew, it’s was a great sailing demonstration from a determined team, the 5 P’s worked well for Arbitrator, Perfect preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

In View of the weather forecast for potentially heavy weather and having won the regatta Arbitrator stayed ashore on Friday and Saturday to prepare for the Worlds in 2 weeks time, allowing Ragtime to win on Friday, Starting offshore away from the fleet and making better use of the stronger breeze Ragtime led by 200 meters at the first mark and this lead was never threatened. On Saturday the fleet joined Ragtime offshore for another downwind start, at the first mark 5 boats approached all with 3 boat lengths of each other, but Pale Tide led Moonlight round the mark to Starboard which seemed the natural direction, however Desperate, Ragtime and Esprit correctly rounded to port, on the long beat back to Cowes Ragtime pulled ahead to end up at Gales HSB leading from Esprit, unfortunately looking for one of the special Cowes laid black marks Ragtime sailed to high, and a 150 meter lead from Esprit was reduced to 5 meters at the next mark, Esprit tacking better in a short tacking duel then took the lead, Moonlight fought her way back into contention by getting into second place, but on the beat to the finish Ragtime recovered to take back second place, but Robert Elliot sailing with Mark Cartwright and Sam Richmond won on Esprit and also finished second overall for the week. Full results are available on http://www.cowesweek.co.uk/