Captain’s Log August 2026

I am sitting down to write this while Cowes week is in full swing and a number of us, of whom I am one, are resting after the exertions of JOG Week.
Before I continue this Log there is a small “Stop Press” item I would like to share. We have just been notified of the death, aged 98, of Rosemary Mudie the widow of Colin Mudie. Colin was one of the founding members of JOG and involved in the Sopranio project which spearheaded JOG. Colin and Rosemary met at HMS Hornet where both had participated in a JOG race. At the time Colin was a was deckhand for John Illingworth and Rosemary was navigator on the ‘all girls boat’ possibly showing that our new Woman’s Sailing Series is a bit behind the times! On behalf of JOG I have sent our condolences.

We are now two thirds through the season and have the August break before we return to battle on the way to St Peter Port over the August Bank holiday weekend. Entries this year are up again, not necessarily a surprise as it is a non Fastnet year. So far a total of 138 boats have participated in the Coastal Series while a total of 85 joined the Offshore series. Entries have of course fluctuated quite a bit between the different races. After the beginning of the season when the wind was either non-existent or unpleasantly strong the wind has been somewhat kinder. There has been quite a lot of jumping around at the top of the fleets although inevitably some consistent leaders are starting to appear.

JOG week proved to be a huge success, the fleet was not enormous, 20 boats with some local Dartmouth boats joining us. After the feeder race from Cowes we had four days of varied racing and conditions beginning with a race around Start Bay in winds up to 30 knots. This was then followed with coastal races to and from Salcombe and Brixham, a final round the cans race in Start Bay and a Pursuit race which did not count towards to overall result. The organisation was excellent, although I am not sure that our Race Manger Martin got much rest. He did however have great support from the Royal Dart YC both on and off the water and there was also generous sponsorship from Henri-Lloyd. The boats were split into two classes with the split at a TCF of 1.000. Class 1 was won by Orbit and Class 2 by Jackdaw. The pursuit race was won by Blackjack. After racing ended, we had a presentation dinner at the Royal Dart with most boats heading back for the Solent either directly or via Weymouth ensuring that those who wanted to join in the festivities for the 200th Anniversary of Cowes Week could do so.

The sharp eyes amongst you will have seen the provisional calendar for 2027 has now been published, we had originally hoped to publish this around the end of May but finalising the programme proved to be less than straightforward. Your Committee was faced with a number of challenges, these ranged from a very early Easter, trying to avoid clashes with Fastnet qualifiers and uncooperative tide times. The result is a calendar which is quite a departure from recent years. Our traditional season opener of the Lonely Tower has been put back to April. This breaks with a tradition that goes back for some 40 years. With the early Easter it was felt that a cross-Channel race was potentially risky and instead we have opted for a Coastal weekend with 3 races. St Vaast has been moved to a non-Bank Holiday weekend, not something we really wanted to do but it seemed the least bad option. It will also be seen that we are to have a race back from Deauville. It is likely that we will revert to the more traditional timing of these events in 2028.

The other big change is an August race to Fecamp, this will not only be our first August race for many years (at one time we used to have a regular race to Dartmouth during August) but it will also be a resurrection Fecamp as a destination. One other thing that the keen eyed might notice is that we are not doing the St Malo race, originally the Committee decided to drop the race from our calendar in non Fastnet years but after further thought it was felt that with the very low level of JOG entries for the last few years, generally between 10 and 12 boats even in Fastnet years, we would be better to do something else but would take care not to overlap so that anyone wanted to visit St Malo as part of their Fastnet campaign could do so.

We hope that these changes work for most people.

One thing that has concerned the Committee for a while is the fact that the number of what might be called “entry level boats” sailing with JOG has been gradually reducing and we are actively looking at ways of encouraging more of these boats to join us. The plans are still being finalised but will be announced in the fullness of time.
Looking further ahead at the end of October there will be our annual Presentation Dinner at the Harbour Hotel Southampton, don’t forget to buy your tickets.

I look forward to seeing you on the water in September.

Anthony Tahourdin
Gunsmoke GBR6455R