Artemis Challenge at Cowes Week

Cowes, UK - Celebrities and All Star sailors were seen sailing some slick Open 60 yachts around the Isle of Wight yesterday in the Artemis Challenge Yacht Race. Dee Caffari, Sam Davies, Brian Thompson, Ellen MacArthur, Steve White, Mike Sanderson, and others were out sailing for charity, and of course, for fun.

The sailing fleet at this year's Artemis Challenge included the yachts Hugo Boss, Aviva, Pindar, Spirit of Weymouth, and others which attracted a celebrity lineup of TV and sport stars as crew, including Davina McCall, Alistair Campbell, James Haskell and Dean Macey.

The morning start found the sailors and spectators at Cowes Week under grey skies, with a southerly 8-10 knot wind. The boats sailed out around the Isle of Wight to the Needles, then turned the corner where the winds kicked up to 20-25 knots. This was fine with the racers, as it allowed them to truly test their sailing skills and yachts.

Ecover 3 skippered by Golding had a great start off the Royal Yacht Squadron line, but as they approach the Needles, staying ahead proved to be a real challenge as the yachts had to push hard against the strong tide. "We had a good start up to the Needles and Pindar passed us as we got to the Needles. At Hurst Narrows we probably should have changed the sail configuration where it was less windy, but we made the call a bit later and BT and Hugo Boss managed to get through." commented Golding.

Brian Thompson and his crew got through as well, and had a great time sailing the yacht Pindar around the 50 nautical miles course in just 4 hours 13 minutes and 48 seconds, earning £10,000 for their favorite charity. According to Brian Thompson, the fastest section of the race was from the Needles to St Katharine's, and when the waves settled down they were reaching 20kts of boat speed.

"I am elated to have won because it was a strong field with a collection of proven contenders," said Thompson. "We had a really good team on board, and made no mistakes with tactics or sail handling. The boat is fast so we just let her go. She loves reaching and she loves a bit of wind - that was how she was designed so she is proving what we all knew but had previously no chance to prove."

Thompson and his team beat Mike Golding on Ecover 3, who managed a very respectable second place win in this year's Artemis Challenge, after enduring a race-long battle with Hugo Boss at the head of the fleet. Hugo Boss skippered by Alex Thomson, who was sailing with celebrity Davina McCall, lost out to Ecover 3 in the end, settling for fifth place in the Artemis Challenge, although there were just 46 seconds between the two boats after four hours of racing.

Thomson confirmed he'd had a good day on the water, and commented with a big smile: "We had lots of wind, about 22 knots maximum, and it was very hectic and certainly no time for rest, but it was a good race, and Devina, my celebrity, seemed to enjoy it too. Interestingly, we had 30 knots of wind on the JP Morgan Round the Island Race and this one we had a maximum of 23 knots and we went 'round a minute faster!"

Our YachtPal Dee Caffari was the fifth to finish this year's Artemis Challenge, just six minutes behind Thomson. With correction Dee, who sailing on Aviva with YachtPal Sam Davies earned a third place win. Caffari said: "It was really great to line up together with all the guys and have the race to ourselves. We were all kind of on top of each other to start with and it was a type of wind direction that didn't have a lot of manoeuvres so it was all about boat speed. It was very interesting. We all had issues of our own coming down the Needles Fairway but the back of the island was great, kites up and it was good sailing and very enjoyable."

ARTEMIS CHALLENGE RESULTS (UNCONFIRMED)

1 PINDAR 04:13:48
2 ECOVER 04:23:08
3 AVIVA 04:30:20
4 BT 04:18:43
5 HUGO BOSS 04:23:54
6 ARTEMIS I 04:47:58
7 ARTEMIS II 04:53:18
8 SPIRIT OF WEYMOUTH

- Artemis Challenge at Cowes by YC for YachtPals.com

READ MORE ABOUT:

• Cowes Week - Crash and Capsizes for iShares UK
• Yacht Racing
• Cowes Week
• Isle of Wight
• UK Sailing