The 44th Three Peaks Yacht Race
The Race Winners and Kings of the Mountains 2022
Rob Howard / 14.07.2022
After the close finish of the top 3 teams yesterday, and with the remaining race boats no longer in contention, the winner and the King of the Mountains titles have been decided.
The race winner, based on IRC handicap, is the Osprey Meadows team, finishing ahead of Wild Spirit in second and Roaring Forties in third.
Roaring Forties were the first across the finish line at 19.10 on Wednesday. They’d started the final stage with a sizeable lead, leaving a tide ahead of any chasers, and at the Mull of Galloway skipper Cris Miles said, “We absolutely romped out of Whitehaven, tide behind us and with a good breeze. We’ve probably got 35 miles on our competitors and are in the box seat.”
In a race of highs and lows, that was a high, but there was a low to come as the J111 couldn’t make it around the Mull of Kintyre before the tide turned against them, and they lost many, frustrating hours before breaking through. At the finish he said, “It was a race where we had to grind it out”, and after descending Ben Nevis and running across the line Jez Robinson said, “What an incredible few days that was!”
The team had taken line honours and the prestigious Daily Telegraph trophy, but the race win wasn’t to be theirs. Behind them Osprey Meadows (X99) and Wild Spirit (Reflex 38) had been close racing for the last 75nm of the course, in sight of each other almost all the way from the Mull of Kintyre.
They reached Corpach lock together and the runners from Wild Spirit were the fastest on Ben Nevis. Matt Knowles and Edward Cordon, have both represented GB and N. Ireland in international mountain running, and the two university students were the fastest on all three peaks, by some distance. Their time on Ben Nevis was an impressive 3 hours 32 minutes, and in total they took 14 hours 42 minutes for all three runs to take the title of Kings of the Mountains.
Their skipper Paul Jackson, said, “They are could be a big asset for other teams in the future, and not just as runners, because they learned quickly and pulled their weight on the boat. We felt we’d almost taught them to be sailors!”
Of the lead 3 teams, Osprey Meadows were the last to cross the line, when Anna Buckingham and Ben Cartwright finished in the last of the daylight at 21.49, but they were the race winners.
The X99, built in 1998, has a much lower handicap than the boats ahead of them, and skipper/owner Geoff West knew they were close enough to the boats in front of them to take his 7th Three Peaks Yacht Race win, with crew Josh Rowley and Phil Downey.
“When I saw the J111 get stopped at Mull of Kintyre, I thought we still had a chance,” he said. “The forecast light winds for the race were in our favour, though there was more wind than forecast.” As it turned out, the X99 won by a comfortable margin, with a corrected overall race time of 4 days 3 hours 46 minutes.
The close racing between Osprey Meadows and Wild Spirit helped them close the gap on Roaring Forties, and West’s unrivalled race knowledge played a part in their win.
“I think past experience makes a big difference,” said Jackson, and West agreed, saying, “I’ve tried many different courses, and seen what many other boats have tried in the past.” He added. “I’ve seen boats have exactly the same problems Roaring Forties did at Mull of Kintyre, and I didn’t take the course on the Clyde side through the North Channel, as Wild Spirit did. I’ve done it before and remember a past race winner gaining a big advantage taking a course closer to the Irish Coast.”
Remarkably, it was West’s third win in his X99 Tactix, in three different decades. He first won in the Danish built boat in 1999, then again in 2010, and now in 2022.
“I think it just goes to show that almost any boat can have a competitive Three Peaks Yacht Race and the handicap is effective. We’ve won in an old boat, with sails bought in 2009, so you don’t need an expensive, modern racer to have a good race here.”
The remaining boats, now on their way into the finish at this year’s race bear this out, and the back marker, Team Olympioz (a Malo 34), could take the last of the big race trophies, the Tilman Cup. This is for all-round performance and now that Baloo had moved to the Challenge Class they are the last team who could win what many regard as the most important trophy of all.
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