RNLI Round The Islands Race at Blackwater SC

Neil Mcculloch and Jane Arnold in the RNLI Round The Islands Race at Blackwater SC © Oliver Southgate / OJSPhotography

Ewan Harris and Jamie Hare in the RNLI Round The Islands Race at Blackwater SC © Oliver Southgate / OJSPhotography

Glamour conditions greeted at the Blackwater Sailing Club RNLI Round the Islands event this year. A perfect 15 knots from the west off the fixed clubhouse start line gave the competitors and America's Cup two-sail reaching start off towards the first turning mark, Ballast Hole, where the gybe onto starboard caught a couple of Blazes and a Laser out.

The first start of the day was for the medium fleet, 20 minutes before the fast fleet were due to get away were shown a clean pair of heels by the Blaze of Terry Crook.

The carnage at the first corner was a prelude of the action to come on the top gear test track style figure eight course. The Fast fleet start were a bit more spread out with the skiffs mostly holding back not wanting to be over the line, the RS800 of Ewan Harris and Jamie Hare had no trouble with timing the line and led by a good margin over the rest of the fleet into the first corner.

By the time the dinghy fleet had reached Osea pier it was obvious that most would complete a "wet lap" and only a few would get away with a "mildly moist". The main dinghy fleet winner completed one of the few only dry laps of the day. The 3 mile run to the next corner Chicago, the spit at the far end of Osea, where the excitement of the downwind blast seemed to confuse a few who forgot to pull in sails or miss judge the wind shadow of the lee of the Osea Island.

A long beat covering the full width of the river from the Island to the Goldhanger shore followed where unluckily for Ewan and Jamie in the RS800 doing their best Lionel Ritchie impression lost a wheel by breaking their jib sheet and had to capsize to put it back on!

As the boats made their way through the gate mark over Osea road, Hammer Head, they could ease off, but this again saw boats being blown over by the bigger gusts as they cleared the lee of the island with one unfortunate team losing its rig.

Across the river for more upwind work through the back of Northey Island where the breeze comes off the fields requiring for some tactical shift calls and good timing to not hit the banks in the narrow section of the course leading up to the final corner of Gambon, Northey Causeway, and just like the test track some like to cut the corner. This can be the harshest part of the course some times and if you don't play close attention the hidden road will bite back and try to flip your reasonably priced boat, this year though there were no nose dives as all cleared the causeway and all centreboards came away good as new.

The final mile long reach back to the club and over the line saw the Spitfire of Neil Mcculloch and Jane Arnold in just 49 minutes and 24 seconds for the 10 plus mile course, the fastest actual lap time. Blaze sailor Terry Crook took the Medium fleet on the water podium place in a quick 1 hour 13 minute and 52 seconds

On corrected time Terry also took the medium fleet prize with the overall standings dominated by the fast fleet with Fireballs and Skiffs. The man to beat and this years Stig award goes to Jon Simpson sailing his UKDinghies Musto Skiff with a corrected win time of 1 hour 5 minutes and 36 seconds, a good 1 minute 24 ahead of Fireball sailors Brett Townsend and Dave Nichols.

Over £380 was raised in aid of the RNLI, with over 50 dinghies entered and 42 finishers all can went home for a well deserved rest!

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Overall Results: