Royal Southampton Yacht Club Island Double
by Mike Ford 20 Jul 2009 11:38 BST
18 July 2009
Not for the feint of heart
There was the UK trapped between 2 low pressure weather systems a gale warning in force for Wight and the RSYC trying to run their most popular race with a record entry for 18 years, including Dee Caffari and Katie Miller. Fortunately most of the forecasts agreed that the gradient wind would be circa 20 knots but with heavy gusts, and no rain till late afternoon. They were nearly right but the gradient did rise to 25 knots with the strongest gust being 32 knots off St Catherine’s Point.
The wind certainly made for exciting sailing. The fleets got off to good starts, with only the odd OCS, for the beat down the Needles with most yachts reefed in, it was a bumpy wet ride with wind over tide producing the infamous Solent chop, causing mal de mar in a few. Once round the Needles the sleigh ride began for those who ventured to fly there kites. There were plenty of broaches as the sea had built and together with the gusts it was easy to be caught out. One or two paid the ultimate penalty and shredded their spinnakers but with plenty of wind it was still quick for those under white sails only. Only the lighter boats got on the plane and made some gains but it was hairy.
The headline news was that the record for monohulls was beaten but only by a mere 13 seconds! Ned Wakefield and Luke McCathey had the race committee on tenterhooks as they only just made it across the line in time on their Class 40, Concise. In the rush to get round the island they failed to display a yellow for a port/starboard incident at the needles when their running backstay got jammed, only apologising to the other boat at the time. So a four-place penalty was awarded to them in addition to the record for the quickest elapsed time since 2004. The new time to beat is 5hrs 58min 38sec.
Their class was won on corrected time by Ray Crouch and Peter Baker on their Adams 10, Boomerang with Chris Rushton and Steve Homewood 2nd on Ding Dong! (Stewart 37) and Katie Miller and Alex Adams on the J105 Voador.
Class 2 saw a victory for Paul Dunstan and Gavin Tappenden on Mandarin proving yet again that Folk boats are the way to go in any Round the Island race. Infinite Jest, an Elizabethan 30 with David Aldridge and Phil Pafford were 2nd and RSYC Captain of Racing, Mike Garvey, with Mike Newton was 3rd on Jarrow.
The senior of the two club classes saw Bob and Jan Trimble take line honours on their very recently acquired Arcona 400, Arc, but victory went to Magewind of Roke, a Maxi 1050 sailed by John Skipper and Tom Henderson. In class 4 the win went to Challenge Round the World skipper Paul Kelly sailing with Peter Draycott on Scruffy, a Contessa 26.
For full results go to www.rsyc.org.uk/racing