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2008 Calendar

Races/Rallies

Last Update

January 06, 2008

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Round the Island Race 2006

A Perspective from the ‘Fax

Two strange things happened on Saturday morning… The first was that I was up at 4.30am. The second was arriving on Shadowfax to find every member of the crew sober and hangover free!

After watching a few starts and saying a few ‘hellos’ to the other 18 Sigmas on the line, it was time to consider some tactics for the first quarter of our 55 mile race around the Isle of Wight. Do we go to the mainland shore and make the most of the northerly breeze or should we take the tidal kicks off the ledges of the Island shore? Workout went hard south, a few boats went hard north, we were indecisive and sat in the middle! All three options were looking even until a wind shift near Lymington, which brought Workout and Woozle Hunter Too across the Solent into a commanding lead of over 20 minutes by The Needles.

With the wind dying and the tide turning, we knew it would be tough getting through The Needles without hitting any of the rocks or wrecks… if we made it at all before the tide took us back to Yarmouth. We squeezed through with Elandra, Auditrac, Ephesian and Sigress, guessing how far Workout and Woozle Hunter had got while we drifted. We wondered how many made it through behind us as we turned to see a mass pile-up. It transpired after the race that a few made it through, some of them having to use their engine as they were crashed into from every side, but many didn’t make it at all.

The plan for the next leg was to sail the rhumb-line unless the sea-breeze kicked in. Everyone knows the story of the boy who cried ‘wolf’… well we had the owner who cried ‘sea-breeze’! With the boys on the boat somewhat distracted by the fabulous view on the South side of the island, we ignored Andy when he said the sea-breeze was developing for about the tenth time since 8am (yes… 8am!) But this time it really was. So we tore ourselves away from the view and focussed on gybing through the narrowest calm spot we could find.

Once we rounded St Catherine’s Point, the Sigmas spread out over a mile wide and nobody could really tell who was beating who. But when we got to Bembridge and turned into the foul tide there were suddenly about 8 Sigmas within a few hundred yards of each other… most of them ahead of us. Where had they all come from? Still, the race was on!

We made a call to go inshore to cheat the tide and I was begging Andy (who was in charge of the GPS plotter and making sure we didn’t run aground) for a few more boat lengths every time we tacked in. After sailing over a lot of green bits on the chart plotter (apparently that is like land, or something?!) we saw a Sigma in the distance that we were slowly reeling in – perhaps we could make the top 3 yet. A quick check in the binoculars and we realised we were chasing Workout. That was it… drinking shirts on, forget the nice view, hike like never before! (Andy has promised us some padding for the rail after he experienced the pain of hiking hard on cheese-wire guard rails!)
After a tacking duel the length of the Eastern Solent we were close enough to see the fear in their eyes! But Workout sailed a spectacular and commanding race and there was no way we were getting through.

Congratulations go out to Jeff and his crew who were first Sigma 33 to add to their recent European Championship title. They also took 4th in class and a superb 17th overall (that’s the top 1% of the entire fleet which goes to show how competitive the Sigma fleet is!)

I’d like to thank Dave and Andy and the rest of the crew for once again giving us a great ride on The Mighty ‘Fax as well as all of the crews from the other 18 Sigmas for making yet another spectacular Sigma event. We hope to see a lot of you at some more of the 4 race day series events coming up.

Sigma Results:

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