‘You have no right! No right!’ Goose 38 squawked at us – her crew as noisy as her name suggested, red protest flag stuffed in hand – furious we might steal her wind as our racing boat crept towards the shore to dodge a bad tide. ‘What are you talking about? Nonsense!’ our helmsman shouted back, deciding to take the risk – rocks and sandbanks lurking below be damned.
We were among 642 boats battling it out at Cowes Week, the world’s oldest sailing regatta, which is marking its 200th year. Our racing boats were Redwings, the longest-established of all the Cowes classes, whose tall red sails add a striking dash of colour to the Solent scene. Onboard Red Gauntlet II, dodging the Isle of Wight car ferry as we headed for the start line, I asked what happened to her predecessor. ‘100 yards away, down there,’ said the helmsman Joe Robertson, 42, who happens to be the Conservative MP for Isle of Wight East (Cowes is in the West, so no home advantage), pointing overboard. Red Gauntlet I had sunk, overwhelmed with water, never to be recovered. Thankfully we weren’t so unlucky.
As my contributions to sailing were few, other than reading the course and compass, I thought to get involved in the tense squabble with Goose, chirping: ‘Who’s the prick on 38?’ Fred Woolgar, 24, my fellow crew member, replied: ‘That is my uncle!’ Argh. Cowes Week turned out to be quite the family affair – Fred’s father was also racing that day, on 21, a boat imaginatively called Redwing, and about to take over running the Royal Yacht Squadron (RYS), one of the most exclusive sailing clubs in the world. A quick lesson in just how incestuous the yachtie circle can be. But the group did have a number of newbies this year, including myself.
