Well, its on again this year, on Friday 31st of October with four local boats being offered to visitors to compete against a Port Phillip crew. There will be a slight change in 2025 with Melbourne owners being aboard their yachts during the racing rather than watching (heart in mouth) from the comfort of the MARGARET PEARL as per last year.

Last week, the Classic Yacht Association of Australia learned that it had secured support from the Joe White Bequest to run the 19th Cup Regatta in 2025. This is the second year in a row that the event has benefitted from the Bequest and hopefully it’s just the start of a long and fruitful relationship.

Organized by the Royal Barcelona Yacht Club (Real Club Náutico de Barcelona), the regatta welcomed historic yachts from over 10 countries and nearly 400 sailors, reaffirming its prestige and outstanding international appeal.

“We gybed at Bembridge and pushed hard as we didn’t know what we would face at Ventnor and St Catherine’s.  We debated whether to go high and hope for breeze under the cliffs or to take the rum line.  In the end, we stayed inshore and it paid off.  There was less breeze, but we wriggled through before the big wind hole came in.”

The proposition that a measurement-based regime would encourage owners to better maintain or upgrade their yachts is illogical. Any classic yacht that races regularly will already be adequately maintained. Upgrades would add to a handicap, which is hardly encouraging. Inevitably, this would soon lead to the rise of an optimisation scramble lead by the professional "rating whisperers" who have become such a blight on IRC racing.

The Classic Yacht Association's annual Patio Bay Race saw tricky conditions after the start with a breeze yet to fill in. Forecast to come from the north it never arose, and instead filled in from the west giving those with running kites a chance to stretch their legs. Some great sights off Awawaroa with RAWHITI and ARIKI having a ding dong battle.

These boats have an inherent integrity because they are are shaped by the vernacular of their allotted challenging task. Even as the pilot cutters of Western England (or the Couta boats of Port Phillip) have become pleasure craft, they have carried with them an honesty of design that is missing from boats shaped purely by the need for speed, or more recently, three double cabins and two heads.

“Eet’s the end of summer,” said the taxi driver, en route from the airport to Barcelona, partly because he’d just learned to say it on Duolingo, but mostly because of the heavy rain and great bolts of fork lightning in the sky above the Catalonian capital.

How do you quantify the feeling of six 40 plus ft craft, meters apart, with a combined age of 400 years, storming close-hauled through the Port Phillip chop towards a start line?

Imagine This. You are standing amongst some of Australia’ most important wooden vessels, smelling the huon pine, admiring the gracious curves and soaking up the history. You have a glass of Tahbilk Ambassador Shiraz 2020 in one hand and a bespoke snag from Lygon Street’s greatest butcher in the other.

While witnessing these wonderful displays of classic yachts outperforming lighter modern boats with their longer waterlines, “something simply just does not ring true!” How can these classics win off scratch in mixed fleets, often against ‘significantly faster’ boats of more ‘flighty’ proportions and high tech construction and yet be considered slow and outdated.

Consequently, winning races became a challenge to outsmart the rule maker as much as to produce a better boat. Unfair shapes with rule cheating ‘rating’ lumps and bumps, poor stability, structural failures and handling issues became the norm, as the design challenge was to find the fastest sailing configuration which would ‘appear slowest’ under the version of the rule applying at the time. 

After being revitalised in 2023, The Cup Regatta, organised by the Classic Yacht Association of Australia, is now looking to expand its reach, with a goal of having 50+ boats racing on the waters of Port Phillip on the first weekend of November.

“…Of all the many anachronisms at the modern Olympics, sailing is perhaps the most conspicuous of all: a continuing sop to super-rich men who founded the Games and still just really love yachts, basically inaccessible to most of the countries in the world, even the ones with a viable coastline.”

It’s been a while coming but I’m finally realising Regatta’s are not necessarily about the glamorous and high-end boats they are about the people you meet and race against on the way through.

Built as a shallow-draft yacht, WHOOPER was mostly cruised, but her natural reaching and downwind speed exceeded expectations. Anecdotes from Peter Bruce recall crossings back from the Channel Islands in the 1960’s, at average speeds over 10 knots!

Reality check No.1: this is on an island that is a public reserve administered and maintained by the taxpayer-funded National Parks and Wildlife Service. Anyone has a right to be there.

The annual Mahurangi Regatta is back to its former glory after a few years of setbacks. Enjoy the imagery here!

The Couta Boat Association has posted a wonderful record of the early years of the Class on its website. There are about 50 Editions of “SCOOP” on line, starting 42 years ago in 1981 and ending in 2011.

This is going to be special! Drinks and food and friends amongst some remarkable restorations. There will be a welcome to the Regatta and brief description of the vessels being worked on in the shed.