Six straight bullets and the Captains' Cup locked up with a day to spare. Phil Lawrence, David King and Nick Froud have dominated the XOD fleet all week aboard Lone Star, securing the trophy ahead of Friday's final race at North Sails Cowes Week 2026, the bicentenary edition of the regatta.
Their consistency across a one-design fleet of 59 boats is all the more striking given the competitive depth of the class. Lawrence is a former Commodore of the Royal Lymington Yacht Club and now Race Director of the Ocean Race.
Thursday brought some relief when serial winners Tim Copsey, John Tremlett and Fraser Graham on Astralita were disqualified for being OCS before the second start following an earlier general recall, removing them from contention for overall honours on the final day.
The day was a brutal one for tacticians and trimmers. With 641 boats on the water, the forecast north-westerly arrived lighter and patchier than expected, warmer temperatures bleeding the pressure from the breeze while a building westerly tide compounded the difficulty.
Karl Kwok's Beau Geste from Hong Kong has had no such trouble at the top end of the fleet. Six straight bullets in IRC 0 have earned the boat the New York Yacht Club Challenge Cup, the second of the regatta's prestigious big-boat trophies.
The Quarter Ton class is similarly settled. Sam Laidlaw's BLT has posted six straight bullets and will repeat last year's class win. BLT is well placed to take the Black Group overall, while Lone Star leads the White Group overall, an unusual situation to have the XOD class leader heading a broader group as well.
Toby Gorman and his crew on Stan The Boat have six bullets in the Sigma 33 fleet and an unassailable lead. In the Swallow class, Nigel Masding and Hugo Fisher on Svala hold a small advantage over Osprey, sailed by James Hartley and crew, with no one else able to catch either of them.
The Mermaid class has been less clear-cut. Sirena, sailed by Anthony Eaton and crew, has moved up and down the leaderboard all week without a race win, but three second places have put them in a strong position heading into Friday. Ben Few Brown's Halluf remains a mathematical chance but needs another bullet, with a 10th place from Sunday still weighing on the scorecard.
Former Chairman of Cowes Combined Clubs Peter Taylor took Thursday's Sunbeam race by just over two minutes, with Holly, sailed by Martin and Vicky Jones, in second.
The Victory class, sailing out of Portsmouth and legendary at Cowes for reasons not entirely related to racing, has James Joplin and Mark Brighs in Zest leading the 13-boat fleet ahead of Jim Downing and Zoe Whitaker in Ziva, with John Scammel and Maxine Reeves in Zilch close behind. Russell Mead, Darren Barnard and Martyn Brown in Shearwater sit fifth, a notable outlier in a fleet otherwise comprehensively committed to the letter Z.
To mark the regatta's 200th edition, Cowes Combined Clubs introduced the Bicentenary Gold Cup, awarded on the first three days of results so the full field remained eligible. The trophy went to Andy Maskell and his team on High Spirit in Performance Cruiser D.
One race day remains. For some, the celebrating has already started.
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