Royal Thames Cumberland Regatta — 26 June '09

26 June –28 June

Cumberland Regatta including the annual dinner of the Cumberland Sailing Society (founded 1775)

Cumberland Regatta 2009 Report

Some 25 craft of the Cumberland Fleet and some 140 members of the Cumberland Sailing Society (founded 1775) gathered in Cowes over the weekend of June 27th and 28th for the Royal Thames Yacht Club's annual Cumberland Regatta, the major summer occasion of the Club and a celebration of the longest continuum of organised yachting by a single group anywhere in the world.

The Result of the 2009 Royal Thames Queen Victoria Cup Race is here

The Result of the RTYC Challenge Cup is here.

The Result of the Royal Thames Festival of Britain Cup race is here.

The 2009 Cumberland Regatta was based entirely on Cowes and with the Cumberland Fleet taking residence – by kind permission of Rear Commodore Yachting – in the Squadron Haven for both Friday and Saturday evenings, on the Platform on Friday and in the Pavilion on Saturday.

The  Fleet gathered on Friday 26^th June, with a drinks reception on the Squadron Platform whence some 120 members of the Society were able to watch the 106-strong RORC fleet start their Royal Thames Morgan Cup race, heading East out through the Forts, bound for Cherbourg. The first race for the Royal Thames Morgan Cup took place in 1929 and it and its associated subsidiary trophies have been raced for continuously ever since, a reminder that it was the Royal Thames Yacht Club that pioneered the organisation of what were then called 'Ocean Races' in the late 19th-century.

On Saturday two races were held, using our celebrated, scientific and much-admired Cumberland Number handicapping system. (Click here for more details of the Cumberland Number system.) In light and occasionally failing breeze (and strong cross-tides the effect of which took several tacticians by surprise) half-a-dozen boats had half-a-dozen attempts to sneak inshore, get upstream and then wriggle round Norris to cross the finish line. Ken Wise and his crew in the very pacy Bowman Starlight 40 Rising Star were first to manage the trick but John and Delphine Stork's Halberg-Rassy 43 Ciconia, pulling the same ploy, was close enough astern to take the Royal Thames Queen Victoria Cup on handicap. Nick Searle's tiny but highly effective J80 Redshift was second on corrected time. Redshift had earlier in the race shown blistering speed to lead the entire Cumberland Fleet to Hill Head - but with Norris the next mark of the course inexplixably spent some time sailing towards Portsmouth.  Wrong castle, Nick!  Former Rear Commodore Sailing Michael Gardner's racy-looking Sea Eagle was third.

After an appropriately leisurely lunch in Osborne Bay a building sea breeze and a traditional Cumberland Fleet cross-Solent zig-zag course turned the RTYC Challenge Cup into a sunshine drag race in perfect sailing conditions and this time there was no gainsaying Rising Star's long legs and elegant gait. Only 1 min 1 sec less elegant was Elvin Patrick's X-43 Snow Leopard with the consistent Sea Eagle claiming another third place.

On the Saturday evening members and guests gathered in the airily elegant Pavilion of the Royal Yacht Squadron to celebrate the RTYC's heritage as the oldest yacht club in the Kingdom at the Annual Dinner of the Cumberland Sailing Society, the Club's original name and the founding body established in 1775. At the dinner additional prizes were awarded - some sartorially immaculate teddy bears to the crew of Mariposa for being the best-dressed crew, and the Brambles Binnoculars to Nick Searle. The Brambles Binnoculars annually go to the crew that in the course of the regatta has demonstrated most need therof, and it was the unanimous view of (both) the judges that Redshift's Portsmouth excursion put her in a class of her own, binnocular-wise.

The Royal Thames Festival of Britain Cup has long been regarded as a trophy to be associated with a race out of the ordinary run-of-the-mill and 2009 was no less innovative than previous years. This was a staggered-start pursuit race with the varied and disparate yachts of the Fleet - as distinguised as they are disparate - being sent off at intervals depending on the Chief Sailing Officer's somewhat arbitrary assessment of how long it should take them to sail the course. In as marked a demonstration as one might wish of the concept of disparate equality Peter Tracey's tall and imposing 60ft cutter Shambhala set off alongside (more or less) the immaculately restored and maintained (and much smaller) West Solent Restricted class Dilkusha owned and sailed by Peter Methven. Dilkusha is nothing less than an exemplar of how to treat a lady.  

Thereafter the fleet set off in pursuit. In fairness it soon became obvious that some were going to have to be luckier than others to catch the steadily tramping Shambhala - but the format nonetheless gave a new and added interest to what can sometimes, with such a varied fleet, become a procession. When it came to luck, however, no one was luckier than the handicapper himself. Shambhala led around the penultimate mark with Sea Eagle leading the fast-closing pack having at last herself been able to catch former vice commodore Francis Read and Waterwitch. Meanwhile, astern, both little Redshift and Roderick, Caroline and Maggy Kay in Roderick's Corsair F27 trimaran Tinkerbell were flying through the boats that had started ahead, gaining ground fast.

Shambhala came on the wind - not that yacht's strongest suit, as the handicapper knew - with Sea Eagle following.  They crossed tacks with Shambhala still ahead. Shambhala tacked a final time on a perfectly judged lay-line for the committee boat. Sea Eagle crossed her line and tacked, overhauling fast and of course pointing higher. Less than a cable's length from the line Sea Eagle slid through Shambhala's weather to snatch the prize by just 45 seconds.

Even more gratifyingly for the handicapper, the rest of the fleet followed across in close-bunched order, getting everyone to the luncheon rendezvous at more or less the same time.