J/70 Winners at Cowes Week 2021

Chaotic and Brutus II win Round Five of the J/70 UK Class Grand Slam Series.

J/70 Class at Cowes Week 2021 © Paul Wyeth/Cowes Week

With 36 entries, the J/70 Class was one of the biggest classes competing at Cowes Week with the added incentive of the four-day mini-series being a Grand Slam Event and a qualifier for next year’s world championship. For three days of the regatta, the J/70 Class had the honour of being the first start off the Royal Squadron Line.

11 races were held over the first four days of Cowes Week, which produced five different race winners: Nick Phillips Chaotic, Martin Dent’s Jelvis, Charles Thompson’s Brutus II, sailed by Marshall King, John Greenland’s Woof and Calascione & Peters Calypso.

Cowes Week Results

Nick Phillips’ Chaotic © Paul Wyeth/Cowes Week

Nick Phillip’s Chaotic, with a team from Poole representing the Royal Thames YC, scored two bullets on the final day to win the J/70 Open Class at Cowes Week. Team Chaotic was: Nick Phillips, Ben Saxton, Matt Hardy and Pete McCoy. Martin Dent’s Jelvis was third overall. Brutus II, sailed by Marshall King, which was the winner of the Corinthian Division was also second in the open division.

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“Cowes Week did really well to get 11 races in, hats off to the committee,” commented Nick Phillips. “The racing was really competitive this year, right down to the last race when everybody was going the same speed and we all arrived at the first mark literally together. To be consistent for the whole week was the key for us, even third and fourth was a happy result to be honest, just to be up there or there abouts you take it, because of the standard of the fleet.”

Marshall King sailing Brutus II © Paul Wyeth/Cowes Week

Charles Thompson’s Brutus II, sailed by Marshall King, scored six podium finishes including two race wins to win the Corinthian Division. The Corinthian team was Marshall King, Ollie Wells, Rob Cooke and Alex King, Marshall’s son who is 20 and a student and Cambridge University.

“A big thank you to Charles Thompson for the boat,” commented Marshall King, winning helmsman for the J/70 Corinthian Class. “Racing at Cowes Week has been really good with a variety of racing and four good days of hard fought sailing. It is really great to have such a big fleet and well done to the Royal Thames, Royal Southern and the Royal Yacht Squadron for making their boats available to youth sailors. I can tell you that my son is amongst that group, and he has had a fantastic time. The mixture of top professionals racing with and against Corinthians, especially youth sailors, is very healthy for the class. Well done to Nick Phillips and his team from Poole, hopefully a fleet will develop there and in other parts of the UK outside the Solent. It would also be fantastic to race J/70s in Ireland, such as Cork Week next year, and I would love to race against my buddies from Howth and Dublin!”

J/70 Powder Monkey – Youth Team! © Paul Wyeth/Cowes Week

The next International event for the J/70 Class will be the 2021 J/70 World Championships, 7-15 August, hosted by the California Yacht Club, Marina del Rey, USA. Fair winds to the two British teams competing in California; the reigning World Champion Paul Ward’s Eat Sleep J Repeat and the reigning UK National Corinthian Champion Charles Thompson’s Brutus.

The next Grand Slam Event for the J/70 UK Class will be the J/70 UK National Championships, which will be non-discardable event in the series. The championships will be hosted by the Royal Yacht Squadron 8-10 October.