Smiling at Cowes 2022

Published 21:01 on 1 Aug 2022

Smile, our 21-foot Hunter Formula One, was bought to give our youngsters a taste of keel-boat racing and this year we decided to enter Cowes Week.

Our Airbnb was adequate but beds were over-subscribed so blow-up beds were squidged into any gaps!

Helming Smile was shared between Jack Holliday and Pippa White, with Pippa unfortunately getting the helm both days (Jack was working) when it was blowing 30 knots. Considering she'd never been on-board before, she did very well - waves were huge and sailing downwind with the big kite up was very exciting. Both of the attached pictures were taken on the same day, but unfortunately nobody took a picture of us surfing down the waves.

The 40-foot Flying Jenny gives you an idea of what the waves were like, and we were only 21 feet long!

Unfortunately on the second windy day I was bounced off the boat by a big wave as we were somewhere between Beaulieu and Lymington. I managed to hang onto the mainsheet and was pulled back on-board by Mark Holliday. The youngsters realised I had un-clipped my crutch strap during the race as it was annoying me, and were going to make me walk up Cowes High Street wearing my inflated life-jacket as a penance!

Racing in Class 7 was tough, with 2 Round The Island Winners and 2 Class winners from Cowes Classics the week before, all with stripped out boats and very competitive ratings. By the end of the week we were getting more competitive and finished 13th overall out of 19 which included counting a retired.

We had 2 bottles of Smile Rum on-board for the after-race debrief in the cockpit - we got through both bottles but cannot remember any de-brief.

A good time was had by all, sunshine, sailing and parties now to dry out, in more ways than one!

Click the link below to see a video which was taken on a calm day.

Jerry White