As Royal Cork Yacht Club prepares to stage the Quarter Ton Cup in July, it's clear the form boat is Sam Laidlaw’s BLT which has been winning all around them on the Solent.
Laidlaw’s BLT won the Class for the third regatta in a row for a hat-trick of victories at the weekend's Vice Admiral’s Cup for the Cowes-based team.
Louise Morton’s all-women team racing Bullet finished the regatta with a win in race six to take runner-up, just two points behind BLT. Third was Jan Thirkettle’s Olivia Anne VI.
“We had a cracking weekend, great racing in perfect conditions, with a good ding-dong with Louse (Morton),” commented BLT’s Sam Laidlaw. “Mid-May is a great time of year as it starts to warm up a bit and the breeze is decent. The regatta was very well organised, and I hope that we will have more Quarter Tonners enjoying it next year; I think the small turn-out was due to a lot of the crew racing in the Cape 31 Class. As always, BLT is a team effort, and I can’t thank the crew enough; Brett Aarons, Tom Forrester-Coles, Ed Lynch, and Ryde School sixth-former Killian Boag on the bow.”
Royal Cork will stage the 2023 2023 Quarter Ton Cup in Cork Harbour from July 13-15th, and plans are afoot to make it 'the Quarter Ton sailing event of the decade'.
The Cup is coming to the Irish south coast from the Solent (for the first time since the Cup was resurrected 17 years ago).
The Quarter Ton Cup is awarded to the World Quarter Ton class championships winners between 1968 and 1997 and for the Quarter Ton Classic Revival from 2005 to the present. The fleet's main centre is on the Solent.
