Lipton Challenge CUP

Race 4 of the Lipton Cup is officially underway, sailing the quadrangle course.

There is a light north westerly in the bay with very nice flat seas. Off the start line there was a fairly even spit going left towards the mountain or right hopefully in effort of finding a northerly lift or possibly more consistent breeze. HYC went left up the course, UCT up the middle, and RCYC went right.

The first boats around the weather marks offset are Walvis Bay with a nice lead, followed by George Lakes, False Bay, Royal Natal, Royal Cape then Saldanha Bay. 13th round the mark is Hermanus, our current overall leaders after yesterdays races.

Postponement flag is flying, with an AP over 2 displayed. This means that there is a 2 hour postponement from the scheduled starting time of 11h00. The forecast is favourable for some afternoon sailing and undoubtably the RC will try their best to send the fleet out!

Clubs are enjoying an extra cup of coffee and breakfast bun this morning after a tough 3 races yesterday.

Don’t forget you can listen to live commentary by Richard Crockett on his WhatsApp group as well as live racing online.

🔗 Commentary
https://chat.whatsapp.com/DWmGohiCfDt98glx39VJkn?s=cl&p=i&mlu=4

🔗 Vakaros
https://player.vakaros.com/watch/Lv9A35uOBSBRmGpHgXtH/J22?live=true

Full day of sailing complete, with three races now on the scoreboard! ⛵️

Race Three was very similar to Race Two, with another triangular course sailed in a very light and shifty south-easterly. Once again, it was fascinating watching the fleet split between the mountain and the beach, with teams taking very different approaches to finding the pressure.

Hermanus Yacht Club had an incredibly consistent day and currently lead the overall standings after finishing 2nd, 4th and 1st across the three races. Royal Cape Yacht Club sit second overall after a 1st, 6th and 6th, while Mike Farrington / Dre Giovannini of Royal Natal have put together a 4th, 2nd and 9th to sit third.

The results are still incredibly tight. Just mere points separates the teams all the way down to 11th, with three boats currently tied on 21 points in 7th, 8th and 9th. There is certainly plenty still to play for.

Across the three races today, we also saw three different race leaders, a great indication of just how competitive the fleet is. Walvis Bay Yacht Club won Race 2, and Lake Deneys Yacht Club had a particularly strong showing in Races Two and Three with a 3rd and a 4th place, the triangular course seeming to suit them well. The question now is whether they can carry that momentum into tomorrow.

There are a few teams we expected to see a little closer to the top of the leaderboard at this stage, but with only three races completed, it is still very much anyone’s game.

Tomorrow’s racing is scheduled to start at 11h00. The forecast is looking very light once again, so fingers crossed for enough breeze to get some great racing on the water!

Three races down. Plenty more to come. 👀⛵️

Race Two of the Lipton Challenge is in the books. ⛵️

🥇Walvis Bay Yacht Club, Bjorn Geiger
🥈Royal Natal Yacht Club, Mike Farrington
🥉 Lake Deneys Yacht Club, Henning K**k and Aaron Biagio

The breeze settled into a very light south-easterly, giving us champagne sailing conditions — flat water, a consistent light breeze and a fleet that stayed incredibly tight throughout the race.

The triangle course was sailed over three laps, and the jury is still out on whether the beach or the mountain side of the course had the biggest advantage!

This particular course really favours a good start. With two of the three legs effectively downwind, there aren’t many opportunities to make big gains once the fleet gets away. A long leg is from the top mark to the offset, a reach, making overtaking difficult, while the run down to the leeward mark is another leg where boats tend to stay bunched together. That puts even more emphasis on making gains upwind and making sure to hold onto them.

It was clear from the start that LDYC had nailed their getaway and they managed to maintain the lead for most of the race. Until the final beat.

The light breeze made for a slightly slower race, but that certainly didn’t make it any less exciting. The first couple of mark roundings were particularly entertaining, with the fleet incredibly bunched together and plenty of shouting for room! And, of course, a tight reach hoist is always interesting to watch.

We’re very happy to have ticked off one of the compulsory course boxes, and congratulations to the race winner! 👏

Results of Race 1 and Race 2 of the 72nd contest.

Race One of the 72nd Lipton Challenge goes to
🥇Royal Cape Yacht Club, helmed by David Rae with an incredible lead that they held the entire race.

🥈Hermanus Yacht Club, Calvin Gibbs & Markus Progli
🥉Point Yacht Club, Richard Weddell.

This three lap windward leeward was champagne sailing for the fleet.

*2025 image used*

The first race of the 72nd Lipton Cup Challenge is officially underway!

After a clean start, the first weather mark rounding order of the fleet was
Royal Cape Yacht Club, followed by Hermanus Yacht Club, UCT, and Point Yacht Club.

4 Clubs decided to gybe hoist as they were in the full thick of it at the rounding and are hoping to make some gains by taking a flyer. Those teams are RCYC Academy, Walvis Bay, Boskop, and Knysna, while the rest of the fleet straight set towards the beach.

The fleet is currently sailing a windward leeward in the vicinity of Milnerton with a receding 14 knot SE.

🔗 follow today’s racing:
https://player.vakaros.com/watch/Lv9A35uOBSBRmGpHgXtH/J22?live=true

All 17 J22’s have now docked off and are on their way to the course area.
Intention for the day from RC is to have 2 races with at least one of them being the compulsory quadrilateral course. Breeze has dropped significantly from the SE we were greeted with this morning and is now slowly turning to a NW direction.

It’s lining up to be a pearler of a day in Table Bay.

🔗 LIVE RACING
https://player.vakaros.com/watch/Lv9A35uOBSBRmGpHgXtH/J22?live=true