The Seattle based crew of Flash participated in this year’s Cowes week on a chartered Ker 40, a state of the art new design of which 11 have been built so far. We had two practice days which were in light air and the first race was in winds between 20 and 25 knots, so the practice was not really relevant other than to find out where things go!!

The boat planes at around 18 to 20 knots, at which time you are doing that same speed surfing down waves!! Very different than Flash!!

We had a good start to the week, with the exception of a massive broach while fighting it out for 2nd place. The broach cost us a badly torn kite and probably 8 places in the day’s overall.

The second day started well, however after hoisting the kite we noticed that the prod was loose while on port jibe. While we debated what was wrong and how to fix it we sailed somewhat away from course and when we finally decided we could continue to race, we had placed ourselves well out in tide and light wind, so that was another learning experience. The third day was a light air day and we had trouble getting the boat going so finished back in the pack.

Somewhat discouraged, we went out for fourth day and with clear air at start we were able to round first mark ahead and managed to stay ahead at all 8 marks as we beat, reached and ran around the west solent for three and a half hours, eventually winning on corrected time by 6 seconds.

For winning the Tuesday race, we received the Queen’s cup, originally presented to Royal Yacht Squadron by Queen Victoria in 1897. The last three days we steadily improved as we were swapping places with the other Ker 40’s just about every leg.

All in all an exciting event!! As a crew we have to give thanks to the Wasabi crew who we sailed with on a couple of Wednesday nights in July, their pointers helped cut down our learning curve immensely and also to the Seattle J 24 fleet for their help in improving our starting technique!! We had clear air on every start while even going the right way most of the time!!

We ended the regatta in 5th overall out of 19 boats –  while it would have been hard to crack to the top three, we could have been closer absent the torn kite and the loose prod.

It’s always a great time to sail in Cowes and do well. People always ask while we are there, how can we come over and sail in their tides and we always say that Seattle has tides also!! Apparently most American crews that show up are from areas that are not as tidal.

To See more photos, click here.