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Round the Island Race 2006
Report from Elandra
After being OCS in light winds for the JOG
Yarmouth to Cowes race, we were determinedly shy of the line for our 0730
start with the result that we started way down the fleet. We stayed fairly
central, in the deep water channel down the western Solent, concentrating on
keeping clear air in the light Northerly. Boats to the south of us, on the
Island shore, seemed to meet more patches of calm. Boats on the North shore
seemed to have more wind, but arrived off Lymington at about the same time
as us.
We delayed hoisting the kite later than most
of the boats around us, and stayed in the middle of the channel. Most boats
were slightly to the West of us, hovering on the edge of the Shingles Bank.
Towards the Needles, we put in a short tack, intending to pass around 30
metres or so from the light. We had heard on the radio that somebody had
already hit the Varvassi that morning, but with flat calm and a slack tide,
we decided to cut the corner.
About 50 metres from the light, we noticed
that a huge raft of boats was forming off the end of the Needles, and
building up quickly as faster boats came in from behind us. We were on the
point of deciding to duck out and go around the outside, when all the gaps
suddenly closed up, and we were committed to being, literally, the inside
boat and following Muskoka through a vanishingly small gap. As we closed on
the light, we could have stepped off the boat and onto the rocks for a
picnic. Water was sloshing backwards and forwards and there was a ledge
sticking out from the lighthouse, just awash so that it was difficult to see
how far out it came, and how steeply it shelved. We were convinced that we
were about to wreck the boat and make the front pages, but Muskoka went
through ahead of us and we managed to follow, somehow without even touching
the boat alongside.
There was no wind under the cliffs in
Scratchels Bay, and it looked like we might have made a mistake in being so
far inshore. Ahead of us, Muskoka seemed to have lost steerage and was
drifting with a few boats in other classes. We had the kite down by now and
were only just managing to keep moving. Auditrac crept through with their
kite up, but we stuck with white sails and slowly pulled out from under the
cliffs, assisted by the turning tide.
We stuck to our pre-race plan and stayed
inshore of the bulk of the fleet up the back of the Wight, hoping to get the
more favourable tide. Nearly everybody else had gone further offshore with
kites up, but we were maintaining position more or less abeam of Auditrac.
Shadowfax now appeared just behind us, and offshore, but they weren’t making
much ground, so we stuck to our plan.
Approaching Blackgang, it looked as though we
were sailing into a hole in the breeze, but as we were thinking of going out
to sail around it, we saw the first signs of wind inshore by the beach. We
started heading in, but within ten minutes, the southerly sea breeze had
switched on and there was no need.
Auditrac and Shadowfax had now started to pull
ahead slightly, so we hoisted the kite again approaching St Catherines. The
wind between St Cat’s and Dunnose was very light and fluky so we were
constantly playing the pole, trying to keep the boat moving. Auditrac and
Shadowfax were still ahead, but we were gaining as much ground as we were
losing with each change in the breeze.
Back to our original plan across Sandown Bay,
and again we stayed inshore. Shadowfax gybed and crossed ahead, but
Auditrac must have stayed offshore and we lost track of them for the rest of
the race. It took half a dozen gybes before we were happy with our track to
Bembridge Ledge buoy, and Shadowfax pulled ahead. Eventually, we were
laying the mark, inside the fleet and going well. At least all this revived
the crew and we managed a perfect drop, rounded up, and climbed into clear
air towards the lifeboat station.
From the Ledge to St Helens fort, the wind had
gone very light, north westerly. We were inside the main fleet, but not as
far inshore as Shadowfax, who went well inshore, and seemed to sail into a
hole in the wind. We saw wind developing off Seaview, so found a suitable
gap and tacked towards it. As we tacked back towards the forts, Shadowfax
came in very quickly and threatened to roll over the top of us, but they
were too close and had to tack away.
St Helens to No Mans Land fort was a beat with
Shadowfax pulling ahead on every tack. We both cut the corner over Ryde
Sands, down to 0.8 metres at one point and wondering if all the years of
disparaging “those idiots” stuck on the sand were going to come back to
haunt us. We’d lost concentration a little, and the boat was going slowly.
Coming off the Sands, we had to duck some starboard tack boats. We freed
off and got moving again, but Shadowfax was clean away by then. We couldn’t
see any other sigma33s.
The wind backed about 30 degrees, and we went
off up the north shore, hoping it would veer again, but it kept lifting and
we sailed all the way up past Stokes Bay on one tack, then an uneventful
beat to the finish. Workout, whom we hadn’t seen from start to finish, and
Shadowfax had got in comfortably ahead of us, but we were third sigma, 24th
in division, and 26th overall in IRC.
As a footnote, Sally’s children were competing
on another boat, and also finished 26th overall: in the ISC group. What
folk do to maintain family harmony!
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