Outstanding conditions and fierce competition at the 2022 Taittinger Royal Solent Yacht Club Regatta
From the release of Oliver Dewar, 7th July 2022
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The 14th Taittinger Royal Solent Yacht Club Regatta held last weekend (Friday 22 – Sunday 24 July) and based in Yarmouth, Isle of Wight, opened with its lively Champagne Reception and delivered a stunning sailing event in racing conditions that would be hard to improve with 190 competing boats filling the Western Solent during the South Coast’s premier yacht club regatta.
With a solid south-westerly on Saturday morning, Black Group raced mid-Solent and off the Mainland shore with breeze building from eight-11 knots as the fleet headed west on a beat with the full ebb tide underneath them.
Tony Mack is a regular, highly-successful Taittinger Royal Solent Yacht Club Regatta entry with his Royal Southern Yacht Club-based J111 McFly. Mack’s 1-1-1 scorecard over the weekend’s three races at this year’s regatta wasn’t easily won: “There was one other particular boat that was all over us,” he explained at the prize giving on the Royal Solent’s waterfront lawn on Sunday afternoon. “We got a bit of weed round the rudder and they were ‘BANG’, right at us.”
'McFly', by Jake Sugden
The team’s on-the-water nemesis Jitterbug suffered a broken backstay and – to some extent – pressure on McFly was reduced. “The slightest thing and it’s all over,” admits Tony Mack of the level of competition within the regatta’s J109 & J111 class. Despite the pressure offshore, Mack and his team fully enjoyed the onshore, social arrangements. “Along with the BVI, this is the nicest regatta we do,” explains Mack. “It’s terribly friendly, the weather was glorious, there are always loads of boats and we made it to the Towers Party which gets better every year,” he continues. “The whole event and the Towers Party is great for younger crew.” This year, the Towers Party entertainment included a guest appearance by John Illsley of Dire Straits; a strong supporter of the party’s charity for 2022, Cure Parkinson’s. “There was one new crew member, a South African, and he’s completely mad about Dire Straits; he just couldn’t believe who was playing at the regatta party!”