2025 De Quincey Cup - DF95s

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Seven three boat teams competed this year’s  De Quincey Cup. The morning rain had cleared by the time the teams were briefed at the pond-side at 9:45. In a change to the traditional format, the event started with three fleet races with one boat from each team sailing in three separate fleet races. After the abandonment of race one and an adjustment to the mooring of the windward mark, the race was re-sailed and won comfortably by Craig Richards from defending champions, Datchet 1 ahead of Chris Nichols of London 1with Dave Andrews of London 2 in third.

 

The second race was won by Hugh McAdoo of Datchet 2 ( 2023 winners) with Barrie Martin of London 1 in second and Martin Crysell of Hampton Court 1 in third. In the third fleet race, Andy Lunt ( London 1) recovered from a poor start and sailed through the entire fleet to win from Phil Holiday ( Datchet 2) with Mike Stroud ( Hampton Court 2) in third. So, after this first phase of racing and with all scores counting to the overall event ( no discards) London 1 had established a strong opening position with (2,2,1 = 5 points), a 6 point advantage over Datchet 1 who led the rest of a tightly bunched field.

 

After a short break the event moved into the team racing phase with a round robin of 7, three race rounds involving 6 teams in each round with one team sitting out and acting as observers for that round. In each race the team winning gained 1 point towards the overall score and the losing team scoring 4 points. The racing was extremely close and the key moments occurred in round 2 where London 1 narrowly beat Datchet 1, the first and only time Datchet 1 had lost an individual team race in two years!  Then, in Round 4 London 2 decided to keep the event interesting by beating London 1 to ensure that the event remained “all to play for” as the event finished with three further fleet races with one boat from each team in each race and all points scoring. So, both Datchet 1 and London won had a team race score of 5 wins and 1 loss meaning that they both carried 9 points forward to the overall score. The team from Emsworth were the best of the rest with 4 wins and 2 losses. 

 

Craig Richards narrowed the gap in the first of the final races winning from Greg Swift of Emsworth with Chris Nichols ( London 1), having been called over the line at the start recovering to third. In the second of this series of fleet races, Peter Townsend of Hampton Court 2 sailed away from the fleet with Hugh McAdoo (Datchet 2) in hot pursuit. Mike Stroud of Hampton Court 2 managed to avoid the chaos at the back of the fleet which led to London 1 and Datchet 1 with high scoring finishes. The situation was that London 1 had to finish the final race to win if Datchet 1 won that race and all seemed to be going well for them as Andy Lunt of the London team having changed down to his B rig in the strengthening breeze led from Vernon Appleton (Datchet 1). However, as the two boats rounded the windward spreader mark and bore away Andy hit a branch floating in the water and came to a stop. Vernon comfortably won the race from Jonny Hepworth of Emsworth but Andy managed to get his boat to the bank and cleared the obstruction and finished the race in 7th place, a leg behind the fleet.

 

 

However, his result was enough for London 1 to win the event with 28 points – 1 point ahead of defending champions Datchet 1 who were keen to point out that the cup which has been proudly displayed in the Datchet trophy cabinet for the past two years is only “on loan” to London for this year.

 

At the prize giving, Nicola De Quincey who was part of the race team and is the granddaughter of the man who donated the cup to London Model Yacht Club for inter-club racing in the 1890’s providing some interesting insights into her sailing family and their connection with LMYC. We look forward to welcoming teams to the Round Pond for the 2026 event and are polling opinion regarding continuing with DF95’s or a change to IOM’s next time around.

 

Colin Harper

Commodore

London Model Yacht Club

 

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