The Red Funnel Easter Regatta is particularly noted for its relaxed rules on outside assistance and the world class coaching provided by Jim Saltonstall, Barry Dunning and Cathy Foster who will be giving free, on-the-water tuition and full and frank video debriefings after racing each day.
The Red Funnel Easter Challenge organised by the Royal Ocean Racing Club attracts a wide spectrum of entries; including production yachts and custom built designs.The impressive fleet of Farr 45s is expected to turn out in numbers, the fleet enjoy close racing and relish the tight Solent courses but this year, the growing number of modified TP52s will be the fastest fleet on the course.
America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Race veteran, Steve Hayles will be navigating on board Ran, for the Red Funnel Easter Challenge. Ran an IRC optimized TP 52, owned by Swedish born Niklas Zennstrom boasts an all star crew of America's Cup and Volvo Ocean Racers. There will be as many as ten of these carbon fibre flyers ripping up the Solent this year and at least five are expected to be competing at Easter for the first time including Serguei Shevtsov's Russian entry, Valars and Stuart Robinson's, Stay Calm.
Whilst the big boat line up looks impressive indeed, there will be some great racing and interesting boats in all of the classes especially as the RYA have announced that they will be using the Red Funnel Easter Challenge as a trial event for selecting teams for this year's Rolex Commodores' Cup.
There will definitely be some well sailed Irish yachts competing at Easter; Eamonn Rohan's brand new Mills 40, Blondie IV is entered for her maiden event and Colm Barrington's new Ker 39, Silk Glove is also expected. Conor and Denise Phelan's Ker 37, Jump Juice and Eamon Crosbie's Ker 32, Voodoo Chile should be racing, making a very competitive Irish line up.
There will also be a large contingent of J/109s racing under IRC at the Red Funnel Easter Challenge, including RORC Commodore, David Aisher, who will be racing Yeoman XXX at Easter for the first time.
The Red Funnel Easter Challenge is not restricted to RORC yachts, any yacht with a valid IRC certificate is most welcome and the owners and their crew will benefit from the superb coaching and the friendly atmosphere.
Enter for the Red Funnel Easter Challenge online via the RORC website: www.rorc.org by 13th March 2008.
Over 6,000 miles of RORC organised racing kicks off this Easter with the 17th edition of the Red Funnel Easter Challenge. There is a mouth-watering prospect of a huge variety of yachts scheduled for seven races in just three days from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd of March. Competitors take note that it is two weeks earlier than last year. 
