Patches takes plaudits on sparkling day

Wind is an essential ingredient for bringing smiles to the faces of competitive sailors - and the Solent had that in ample sufficiency yesterday at the start of Cowes Week, the traditional British festival of yachting.

Westerly winds of 15 to 20 knots provided the power for a record 1,036 competing boats. What was short in supply, though, was sunshine to make the conditions ideal. The grey clouds came rolling in, but the sailing was nevertheless sparkling.

There were the usual hiccups of day one, with commercial shipping into Southampton causing a delay to the start and one impossible course set in the Royal Southampton Yacht Club regatta.

The bigger boats in IRC Class 0 always take pride of place, particularly for the spectators who line the 'Green' just to the west of the starting-line at the Royal Yacht Squadron Castle. Charles Dunstone's Nokia Enigma held sway among them, at least on the water, but the 76-footer could not hold up on corrected time.

Indeed, the Queen's Cup, the 108-year-old challenge trophy, will have a new name on it - Patches. The TP-52 class from Ireland has Britain's double Olympic silver medallist, Ian Walker, behind the wheel and finished three minutes clear of the field when the handicaps had been computed.

Nick Lykiardopulo's 55ft Aera, winner of this year's Sydney-Hobart Race - the first British boat to do so since the late Ted Heath's Morning Cloud in 1969 - was second to Patches, just holding off Nokia Enigma by 20 seconds.

The battle between these three will make interesting watching throughout the next week.

Ben Ainslie, now tied with Rodney Pattisson to be the most successful British Olympic sailor, was behind the wheel of the Farr 45 John Merricks, in IRC Class 1 with a group of RYA/Volvo trainees for crew. Despite his crew's inexperience, Ainslie piloted John Merricks to a second-place finish, behind another Farr 45, Benny Kelly's Warewolf.

Whether the IRC Class 2 race will be allowed to stand is a matter for debate after the crews were ordered to pass the limiting buoys on the starting line on the 'wrong' side. If the race validity is upheld, Colm Barrington's Flying Glove, another of the Irish visitors, will take home the Vanduara Bowl by finishing a minute and a half ahead of the Dutch 47-footer, Moana.

In the Laser SB-3s, an exciting small keelboat class that has 66 identical boats racing, Ian Southworth's WKD Vodka Red stretched away from the rest, finishing almost two minutes clear of Jerry Hill's Team Tourareg.

Racing in Cowes Week continuously since they first appeared in 1908, the X-class has the most boats at 79.

Stuart Jardine is a regular winner at Cowes and took home the Captain's Cup, the overall prize, last year. And his defence started well as he won the first race in Lone Star by a minute from David Lindsay's Caprice.