Cowes Week -On the Platform — 31 July '09

31 July –03 August

Join the RTYC and friends on the platform or crew Thames Five throughout the week

The first three days of Cowes Week are managed by the so-called First Triumvirate of ourselves, the Royal London YC and the Royal Southampton Yacht Club, with the race team made up of members of all three clubs. The Principal Race Officer this year will again be Jamie Clark, of Royal London.

Continuing last year’s successful experiment, starts for the Black Group (the IRC cruiser/ racer classes) will be managed from a committee boat on the outer end of the Squadron line. CRO on ‘Castle 2’ (as that boat is known) will be David Giddings of Royal Southampton. Dave takes over as overall PRO for the Triumvirate next year, to serve a two-year term.

Starts for the White Group (the dayboat classes) continue to be run from the Squadron Platform, where our own Gillian Smith rules the roost as Principal Line Officer.

There are no insignificant roles in the race team. The day-to-day running of the country’s largest sailing festival, with upwards of 1,000 yachts racing in more than 30 classes,  requires a management chain that can be no stronger than its weakest link: there are almost as many different bits of paper to master as there are yachts in the regatta. For this reason, only already-experienced race officers are invited to be part of the team – but any member who has not done the job before but who thinks they might like to join the team for future Cowes Weeks is welcome to ‘shadow’ a role for this year. Contact the CSO by clicking anywhere on this blue highlighted text if you are interested.

In addition to the Platform team, our workboat Thames Five is on duty every day of the week and requires crew. T5 starts early and finishes late. Her primary role is to lay, each morning, the five special marks being used that day (these are up to five ‘extra’ racing marks, laid in any five of ten pre-plotted and published positions, to provide additional mark options for the course setters) and to lift them in the evening. In between times T5 is used as a spotter boat, sending back to ‘The Bunker’ information on progress round the course. This involves being sent, by radioed instruction, to a mark with a list of classes scheduled to round that mark, and report back by radio as and when each class leader reaches the mark. This vital information is then input to the course-setting computers and updates the list of expected finishing times. For most of the time having this information is comforting to the course-setters and the line finishing teams: when the breeze is failing, it is the vital key by which decisions are made about shortening courses.

Thames Five is manned throughout the week as far as possible by Thames members, working morning and afternoon shifts. She needs ideally a driver plus two for mark lifting and laying, a driver plus one for spotting, although two people who know what they are doing can readily cope with the marks as well. Again, contact the CSO if you would like to join the Thames Five crew for any part of any day during the Week. Click here to read all about Thames Five and how to join the regular T5 crew pool.

For the first three days of the Week, Thames Five will be skippered in the forenoon by Bill A-J, assisted by Lene Viney, and in the afternoons by Doug Harckham.  At the end of the Week, David Arnold will take over. For the middle part of the Week, the manning roster has still to be filled.