CHAMPAGNE SAILING AT THE VICE ADMIRAL'S CUP

Catch up with the North Sails experts who were in and amongst the action

The three day event took place in the Solent over the weekend with eight close races in glamour sailing conditions. Although the forecast was light for the whole weekend, the trusty Solent sea breeze filled in each day meaning all the one design fleets completed their racing series. North Sails experts Nick Bonner, Pete Redmond and Jonty Cook were out racing amongst the fleet. Here’s what they had to say about the sailing

Pete Redmond sailing on Nifty & Sunrise, part of the newly formed Performance 40 fleet.

“The Performance 40 fleet is super cool racing and quite a fun fleet to be in. There were seven boats in the fleet and everyone’s close at top marks because the boats are all a similar speed. One of the races all boats finished within 40 seconds of each other after IRC correction.”

“Because it’s so tight, there's a big emphasis on crew work, so you can’t have a shocker and get away with it, which the coastal race proved. Anyone who couldn’t peel or who had the wrong sail up didn’t do very well.”

Jonty Cook was sailing onboard J/111 Jitterbug

“There were seven boats in the J/111 class, we normally race as part of the Performance 40 fleet. The weekend was pretty decent one design racing. It’s a similar situation to the Performance 40’s, everyone goes pretty much the same speed so it all comes down to crew manoeuvres. Jelvis, the winners, were particularly rapid.

“Being able to pull manoeuvres such as goose winging all the way downwind in the light airs gives an extra edge to everyone else in the fleet which is what you need in One Design racing.”

Nick Bonner was out on the water watching the racing, he was particularly interested in the Quarter Tonner fleet

“Aguila had a full set of 3Di sails and they used them all weekend and were looking really good. Although they had a bad friday, they really turned it on for the rest of the regatta and won their class. The sails looked really smooth and shape-wise looked really nice with the sail shape holding in the correctly.

“The feedback from the guys in the fleet was also really positive, especially those moving from 3DL to 3Di sails. Relative to the 3DL sail shapes, the 3Di is looking pretty accurate. We have a strong market share within the fleet which is great for us in such a great development class!”

“Rumbleflurg in the Performance 40 fleet have a lot of potential. They have a new boat and a new crew, and I think they will just get better and better across the season. With a few tweaks to their boat and some more on the water practise, they will be up their at the front of the fleet.” “It was also great to see Toucan and Pandemonium looking strong in the HP30 class. Pandemonium has recently changed to North Sails, so we look forward to working with them and getting them up to the front.” In the J/111 fleet, Martin Dent’s Jelvis put in the performance of the weekend scoring 1-1-1-1-2-1-1-3 putting them clear in the lead with their Dutch rivals Sweeny. The J/109 fleet also had a strong turnout ahead of the championship next week, Simon Perry’s Jiraffe put in an equally stunning performance to win the regatta also scoring 6 bullets in the eight race series. The largest fleet in the regatta was the Quarter Tonner fleet. The final result saw all three podium finishers tied on points! Sam Laidlaw’s Aguila took the regatta, plugging 3 bullets across the series. Once again it was the battle of the King 40’s at the front end of the Performance 40 fleet. The two boats fought it out to the very last race, with Roger Bowden’s Nifty coming out on top by 2.5 points ahead of Michael Blair’s Cobra. In third place was the new boat to the fleet, Thomas Kneen’s JPK 1180, Sunrise. All the boats mentioned above are fitted out with North Sails inventories. If you are interested in updating your sails, get in touch with our local team to find out what we can do for you! Full results