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Round the Island Race

Kate Newman, sailing on Charles Whittams Westerly Fulmar 'Shadow' reports from the 2009 Round the Island Race which took place on 20 June.

The weather was variable but mostly fair for this years Round the Island race run by the Island Sailing Club and once more sponsored by JP Morgan Asset Management. The weather briefing was packed and lively on the eve of the race and I spotted our president, Sir Robin Knox-Johnston in the crowd by the bar. Sir Robin was competing on his Volvo Open 60, 'Grey Power'. On the day, the start line was a bit tough to pinpoint what with all the boats jostling for position and what seemed like a very short start line. At our 0830 start there were about 200 entrants so just over a metre each at the line.

The wind was very light until we were half way down the Western Solent so the whole fleet was very compressed compared to last year. Once round the Needles we had a long downwind spinnaker run right round to Bembridge Ledge with a couple of urgent gybes on the way. It was an amazing sight to see all the different coloured spinnakers and some were on the point of broaching as the swell built up near St Catherines point and for a couple of miles further east.

With the decision to leave No Mans Fort out of the marks of the course, a large number of boats decided to keep the fort to starboard and try their luck with Ryde Sands. Some with great success, some with less success like the Ryde - Portsmouth Cat which got stuck attempting to avoid all the entrants, plus at least another five or six yachts that we could see. The challenge on the Eastern Solent was to get clean air and avoid the adverse tide two opposing challenges to try to balance.

Due to the number of boats competing, there were two finish lines, a South and a North finish, both east of the Prince Consort Cardinal. Broken up by a large central committee boat, the final leg was painful as we needed to tack a number of times to ensure we laid and made the line correctly. The wind was dying and compounded by the adverse tide the approach to the finish was frustratingly slow.

Overall it was a longer day than we had hoped for, over 11 hours on the water, but exhilarating and fun to have taken part in what is a well-organised yearly spectacle.

LSC boats

There were at least 10 Little Ship Club skippered boats taking part in the race, as well as Sir Robin Knox-Johnston in Grey Power. 'Shadow' was best-placed of the IRC rated boats, coming 182nd with a corrected time of 10.01.05. Barrie Martins 'Day at the Races' was 192nd with a time of 10.04.02. In the ISC rated section, Cabriole III', skippered by Simon Aubrey-Jones came 244th ahead of 'Wings of Pegasus', Roger Garlicks boat, which was 457th.

IRC rated boats

  • Shadow (Charles Whittam) 182nd
  • A Day at the Races (Barrie Martin) 192nd
  • Batfish III (Bill Blain) 216th
  • Jazzy Jellyfish (Ben Few-Brown) 340th
  • Arvika (Mike Gorvett/Carol Day) 453rd
  • Sunny (David Ives) 448th

ISC rated boats

  • Cabriole III (Simon Aubrey Jones) 244nd
  • Wings of Pegasus (Roger Garlick) 457th
  • CeAire (Guy Kingsbury) 515th
  • Mary Lunn (Robin Whaite) 664th

The chief trophy (Gold Roman Bowl) is specifically for IRC rated boats, of which there were 583 starters altogether, split between four start groups based on handicap (faster boats start first).

The second "main" trophy (Silver Gilt Roman Bowl) is awarded to the first boat in the ISC (Island Sailing Club) handicap class, which is for cruisers which do not hold an IRC rating (IRC rated boats are not allowed to enter in the ISC class).