Metropolitan Police Sailing Club Offshore Championships

The champions of this event were the MPSC team of dinghy sailors led by Gary Walters, sailing Sunsail 50. Helped by Roger Glass at the helm, they won three of the four races that were to count for championship points, and came second in the other one. They were able to discard their worst result, which was a 9th position in race 4. The 2004 runners-up were the visiting team from Warwickshire, led by Chris Edmunds, sailing Sunsail 42. They had the distinction of having their Chief Constable, John Burbeck, calling the shots as tactician. They won race 4, came 2nd in race 3, and had a 4th and a 5th in two other races. The MPSC team led by Andy Gardner, sailing Sunsail 54, took the 3rd prize, just one point behind the Warwickshire team. 24 teams took part in this the 10th anniversary of this annual event. Seven of those teams came from visiting forces - Dorset, Hertfordshire, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Sussex, Warwickshire and West Midlands.

The MPSC Offshore Sailing Championship has grown into a serious racing event over the years with more and more teams becoming highly competitive. Some teams take it so seriously that they charter similar Sunsail yachts (37- foot Jeaneaus) one or two days ahead of the event to familiarise themselves with the boat and the sailing conditions in The Solent. Five championship races were sailed over two days – three on Thursday and two on Friday. All 24 participating ‘identical’ yachts were chartered from Sunsail of Port Solent. The Race Officer was Bill Oakley of the ‘RacewithCondor’ race management team. He controlled the races from his steel motor yacht Condor. He was ably assisted at the starts by Vic George and Boyd Page who were manning the MPSC rib, Broadsword. Vic and Boyd spent much of their time at this event taking hundreds of photographs of the competitors with some new digital equipment. At the end of the meeting they were able to supply each skipper with a compact disc containing many of those pictures. The five races were held mainly in the Central Solent area – between Portsmouth and Calshot - using familiar yacht racing marks as turning points. The general weather forecast for the week was wet and windy. The shipping forecast on Thursday morning was for gale force winds with rain and more rain! But in actual fact the strongest winds experienced was for race 1, which was no more than 22 to 23 knots. That wind dropped as the day wore on, until it almost disappeared completely in the afternoon. On Friday the winds were light to moderate. There were lots of black rain clouds blowing in from the west, but amazingly they split themselves up between the mainland and the Isle of Wight leaving a patch of clear sky above The Solent itself. Hardly any rain fell on the fleet during racing. However, what wind there was had a real nip to it causing all the teams and officials to wrap up warmly.

The initial briefing for this championship took place at the Customs House at Gun Wharf, Portsmouth, in the shadow of the spectacular 170 metre Millennium Tower (still uncompleted). There, Karoline George and her efficient admin team sorted out the paperwork and any financial difficulties. Then Bill Oakley briefed the skippers on what he expected of them during the competition. He was hoping to start the first race at 0800 hours on Thursday near Gillkicker Point. However, when Bill motored Condor out to Gillkicker early on Thursday morning he found the wind direction was all wrong for a good start, and moved further west to the green navigation mark, BROWNDOWN, and set up a start line there. This caused some delay, and the start sequence was not begun until 0910. At 0919 the ‘Blue Peter’ came down and a line of yachts, mostly on the starboard tack, approached the start line. The leading yacht was Sunsail 50 (Gary Walters) steered by Roger Glass, and it looked as if they were going to make a flying start. But they were a few seconds too early and had veer away from the line, which slowed the yacht down allowing other boats to pull alongside. At 0920 the class flag was lowered and the race was on. It was a clean start! Sunsail 41 (Mason King), one of the few yachts that crossed the line on the port tack, managed to wriggle through the rest of the fleet without incident and made one of the best starts. Sunsail 41 and Sunsail 50 led the fleet northwest towards the cardinal mark, EAST BRAMBLE, the first mark of the course. From there they had to sail up to MARSH and then back to FASTNET INSURANCE for the finish. Just before the end of the race the committee boat crew received a radio message from Sunsail 57 (Bob Mahoney – MPSC) that they were retiring from the race and heading for Cowes with an injured crew member who had a suspected fractured ankle. At the finish it was Sunsail 49 (Ray Robinson – MPSC) that crossed the line first, over 2 minutes ahead of Sunsail 50 (Gary Walters) and Sunsail 54 (Andy Gardner - MPSC) who were only 2 seconds apart. The closest finish of all was between Sunsail 65 (Paul Hackney – MPSC) and Sunsail 61 (Alan Slater – MPSC), just one second apart, down in 12th and 13th place. All 23 yachts finished within 13 minutes of each other.

Race 2 was started in a wind of about force 4 at FASTNET INSURANCE at 1100, with 23 yachts crossing the line (Sunsail 57 was still at Cowes). Two of them, Sunsail 50 and Sunsail 41, the two leading starters in race 1, crossed a little too early and were called back by the race officer to try again. The course was a north-westerly beat to EAST KNOLL, a run back to SEASCOPE and NAVIGATION & GENERAL, then another beat back to EAST KNOLL, a run back to FASTNET INSURANCE, a beat up HILL HEAD, and finally a run to the finish at NAVIGATION & GENERAL. That took the leading yacht two hours and two and half minutes to complete. In spite of their premature start and call-back, it was Sunsail 50 that crossed the finish line first, one minute 20 seconds ahead of Sunsail 54 (who had had their mainsail changed in between races). 37 seconds later Sunsail 59 (Andy Parker – MPSC, with Ross Elliston at the helm) crossed the line just 18 seconds ahead of Sunsail 42 (seen earlier in the race with their spinnaker flying sideways). All the yachts finished within 27 minutes of each other. By the end of this race the wind had dropped to about force 3, and there were black clouds and heavy rain over the New Forest and Fawley.

The wet weather over the mainland seemed to upset the weather pattern over The Solent itself and it wasn’t until 1555 that the race officer was happy to start race 3. The start sequence was begun a couple of times before that, but then cancelled because of sudden changes in wind direction. Eventually the start line was laid at FASTNET INSURANCE and the fleet of 24 yachts got away to a clean but slow start. The wind had dropped to between force 1 and 2 and some crews found it difficult to combat the tide. Sunsail 56 (John Bailey – MPSC, with Edward Piggin at the helm) took over 19 minutes to get across the start line. The course set by the race officer for race 3 was ROYAL SOUTHERN to port; FASTNET INSURANCE to port; back to ROYAL SOUTHERN to port; MARINETRACK.COM to starboard; HILL HEAD to port; and then a reach to the finish at AIR CANADA. But due to the light winds the race was shortened after two legs at FASTNET INSURANCE. Sunsail 50 won this race convincingly, finishing over 4 minutes ahead of Sunsail 42. 12 seconds later Sunsail 47 (Ian Jarred – Dorset) finished in 3rd place 20 seconds in front of Sunsail 49 and Sunsail 41 who were sailing neck and neck for the line. They were both given the same finishing time, but the Andy Parker team took 4th place ‘by a nose’. Sunsail 61 and Sunsail 64 (Alan Costello – Sussex) finished just one second apart down in 15th and 16th place. All 24 yachts finished with 25 minutes of each other.

At the end of race 3 the fleet made its way to Cowes and motored up the River Medina to the Folly Inn, where an evening meal had been arranged. Due to low water and a spring tide there was very little water under the keel of many boats by the time they got there. A substantial meal was had by all and over £1000 raised in the raffle for Cancer Research.

The weather was clear and dry with winds westerly force 3 to 4 on Friday morning when Bill Oakley set up a start line for race 4 at MARINETRACK.COM. He started the start sequence at 0910. Only 23 yachts were ready for the race to begin, but they were very eager to do well. This was shown by the fact that four yachts were over the line when the class flag came down at 0920 and had to return. They were Sunsail 43 (Michael Corrigan – West Midlands), Sunsail 47 (Ian Jarred – Dorset), Sunsail 54 (Andy Gardner – MPSC) and Sunsail 77 (Ian Mill – MPSC). Sunsail 53 (David Little) was delayed in getting out of the Medina and missed the start. The rest of the fleet got away smartly, beating west towards SEASCOPE. From there it was a spinnaker run down to DB MARINE and then another westerly beat, this time to SUNSAIL. It was the Warwickshire team in Sunsail 42 that made the best of that beat and rounded SUNSAIL first. They were closely followed by Sunsail 41, Sunsail 51, Sunsail 44, Sunsail 64 and Sunsail 59. The blue spinnakers then shot up and, with the tide under them, the yachts were off on a fast run to BOB KEMP (in line with Ryde Pier). Having rounded that mark to port the fleet headed across to Spithead where it rounded MCMURDO PAINS WESSEX then came back to GLEEDS for the finish. After almost 2 hours and 25 minutes of racing the Warwickshire yacht, Sunsail 42 finished just 18 seconds ahead of team Mason King in Sunsail 41. They were over 3 minutes in front of the Dorset team in Sunsail 47 who finished 3rd, just 7 seconds ahead of team Ray Robinson in Sunsail 47. There were other close tussles all down the line, the closest being between team Ian Mill in Sunsail 77 and team Paul Hackney in Sunsail 65. Ian snatched the 11th position by just 5 seconds. Top marks for persistence went to Paul Perman and his team in Sunsail 62 who scraped over the finish line a mere 10 seconds inside the 3-hour time limit for this race.

Bill Oakley wanted to keep the 5th and final race tight, and so set a course where he could see all the marks from the committee boat, and also had plenty of choices of where he could shorten the race if necessary. However, that latter option was unnecessary as the force 2 to 3 winds held up right throughout the race. The start line was set up at GLEEDS with the first beat to MARLOW ROPES (near Gillkicker Point), and then a reach along ‘the wall’ to VAIL WILLIAMS, followed by a run across the swatchway to PIMSIC and then back to GLEEDS. The fleet had to complete two laps of that course finishing at GLEEDS. This gave the competitors some added interest in that they had to keep clear of the hovercraft and ferries sailing to and from the Isle of Wight. 23 yachts got away to a clean start at 1250. Sunsail 50, true to form, took an early and considerable lead. However, slowly but surely, as the race went on, Sunsail 54 cut down that lead. But they could not quite catch them, and after 82 minutes of racing the two yachts crossed the finish line just 8 seconds apart. The Nottinghamshire team, with Peter Walters at the helm of Sunsail 44, finished 3 minutes and 28 seconds later in 3rd place. There were lots of other close finishes further down the fleet. All 22 yachts completing the course finished within 20 minutes of each other. After crossing the finish line the fleet made its way into Portsmouth Harbour and up to Port Solent.

The prize giving was held that evening at the Sunsail headquarters at Port Solent, with DAC Carol Howlett – Commodore of the MPSC – presenting the prizes. The top prizes went to the teams mentioned in the first paragraph of this report. But there was one special new prize presented in memory of Ian Alexander of the Hertfordshire Police, who was tragically killed earlier this year in a microlight accident. The silver cup, to be known as the "Alexander Arrived Trophy", was presented to the winner of the first race by Ian’s widow, Sarah Alexander. She read out a poem which explained that the word "Arrived" on the trophy was a singular text message she received from her husband whilst on one of his sailing trips. Both Carol Howlett and Gary Walters (on behalf of the competitors) offered a vote of thanks to Karoline George and her team of helpers, and to Bill Oakley (the race officer), for a well organised and enjoyable event. The dates for the 2005 championships were announced as the 6th and 7th October.

Overall Results: