Three cheers for the race committee at Skandia Cowes Week yesterday.

Race committees get it in the neck when things go wrong. You rarely hear them praised. But yesterday the Cowes committee did a fantastic job in getting everyone racing on a very difficult day.

The sea breeze didn’t arrive until after 1600 and it didn’t stay long, but everyone got a race before the wind died away. The Darings, Etchells, Bembridge Redwings and Sunbeams in the White Group made it back against the thundering ebb tide on a dying breeze, in time to pick up their moorings at about 1830-1900.

It deserves a round of applause to squeak out so many good races yet manage to avoid ending up with 150 engineless day boats being flushed away on the tide as the sun goes down.