Round the Goodwins Race at Royal Temple Yacht Club

The Royal Temple Yacht Club's classic Round the Goodwins Race lived up to its reputation with a classic day's sailing, enjoyed by almost 40 yachts from the East Coast ports as well as the French centres of Boulogne, Dunkirk and Gravelines.

The circumnavigation, run as a 28 mile course clockwise around the Sands and sailed in bright sunshine, with a force 4-5 South Westerly was completed in something very close to a record by Robbie Stewart's Class One 'Ding Dong' with an elapsed time of 4 hrs 1.39 minutes.

This brought him third place overall, and the Link Cup for Class One, but the honours of the day and the Overall Noot Cup went to the Class Two entry sailed by Ashley Taylor and Paul Hirst of the host club with their Limbo 9.9 'Abrasive'.

Apart from 'Ding Dong' it was a well deserved bonanza time for the Royal Temple with Lance Tucker leading his class all the way with the Laser 28 'Leda' to take second overall and first in Class Three, and Peter Jackson and Will Stephens in fourth place overall with the J39 'Assassin'.

With an IRC rating range from 0.886 to 1.110 and the overall winners coming from all three classes, it was clearly an immensely enjoyable and close-fought race, which provides points for both the East Anglian Offshore Racing season and the French based Challenge du Chanel.

It is exciting to see so many new boats around this year, and so far there is a huge spirit of optimism amongst the offshore fleet in this part of the world.

The race started with a windward leg to the Stonor buoy where the Laser 28 'Leda' led the fleet closely followed by two Impalas 'Scallywag' (Peter Pearson) and 'Blue Imp' (Ian Braithwaite).

Class Two were led by James Mattison's 'Sorcerer' followed by Chris Denby's 'Mr Lifter' ; Charlie Mills' 'Shoot the Bar' and 'Exotic' (Mike Brand and David Elderfield) the first of three X332's. Class One was headed by David Chatterton and Josh Warren from West Mersea with the new IMX 40 'Sensor' from 'Assassin' and 'Ding Dong'.

Next came a shy spinnaker reach to the Goodwin Knoll buoy, before coming on the beat from the East Goodwin to the South West Goodwin where a strong fair tide and increasing wind strength from the south west began to kick up some heavy seas, which caused gear problems for a few. At this point both the Scratch boat the Bull 9000 'Push the Temple' (M.Green) which had been leading Class one fell back with a broken runner, and Stephen Gosling's 'Scarlet Jester' had headfoil problems, while Class Two had found a new leader in 'X-Factor' (John Barrett & Paul Wodward) closely followed by 'Exotic' and 'Gironde''(Paul Wood).

On the beat Ding Dong' led the fleet out to sea , but 'Assassin' and 'Sorcerer' who both tacked back towards the sands to find flatter water profited by the move, and 'Assassin' moved into second place, only to be overtaken by 'Fiona VIII' on the reach to the South Foreland, with 'Sensor' closing the gap fast behind. Alan Bartlett's 'Inn Spirit' and 'Giselle of Coursell' the new Beneteau 36.7 from Dunkirk were both still in touch.

In Class 2, the leading boat 'X Factor' was being hard pressed by 'Exotic' until the latter blew out her spinnaker, with 'Shoot the Bar' coming up fast, and 'Abrasive' looking good as the lowest rated boat in class.

In Class 3 'Leda' continued to maintain her lead as the fleet spinnakered home through Sandwich Bay, being followed by the French entry 'Carpe Diem' from Gravelines, and 'Scallywag'. The first and only gybe came on the final leg from Stonar buoy to the finish, where 'Ding Dong' took line honours from 'Fiona VIII' and 'Assassin'. With three of the first four overall places the Team Trophy went to the Royal Temple, with the Royal Burnham team of 'Ding Dong','Fiona VIII' and 'Sorcerer' in second place and the Crouch Yacht Club in third place.

Overall Results: