One More Knot's 2003 Round the Island race report
One More Knot took part in the 2003 Round the Island Race. This was the first race for OMK and her skipper. Being a bit nervous about the prospect of 1600 other boats trying to share the same bit of water, planning started with picking a crew. The crew had been picked to include as much experience as was available, albeit a bit rusty.
Crew
Kevin, the most experienced on-board, co-owner and first mate is a veteran of the Fastnet, a trans-at crossing and numerous jog races, plus more sea miles than he would care to acknowledge.
Richard, a veteran dinghy racer of 20 years ago. Also co-owner of Thirty Something, with Phil and Lynn. Plus the lardy git managed to get down the speed course at just over 30 knots; about 3 knots faster than Phil at Weymouth (Portland Harbour) when Phil and Richard used to go speed sailing (windsurfing) together.
Julian, once confessed to doing the Fastnet, and has also been on the mainsheet for some pretty rapid Cherbourg crossings on OMK.
Paul, a relative sailing novice. We took him out for a practice weekend a few weeks before the race. It blew a Force 7, so on the day nothing phased him.
Finally, skipper Phil has done no racing other than speed windsurfing .... oh and a 24 hour windsurfing charity event. But with quite a few years cruising and always keen to go fast, he was up for it as usual.
Shore crew, Lynn and Berit, observed the race from the Isle of Wight. Chasing around the island in Lynn's 206CC with the roof down, taking pictures when the opportunity arose. Apparently it was quite hard to identify One More Knot, there were quite a lot of other boats out there too ......
Preparation
OMK's insurance was changed for the race.
Phil dived on the boat the weekend before, for a partial scrub. Silly b****r ... never again.
We dumped the dinghy, emptied the water tanks, but everything else stayed on board.
Phil was worried about the timing of the start and the turn of the tide at Needles, especially with the prospect of light winds. So some meticulous pre-race planning was done, and a little crib sheet printed up and sealed for use in the cockpit.
One More Knot's Race Report
An early morning start saw OMK join a long procession of yachts between Portsmouth and Cowes. We took some time to observe the start, and sort out some transits for the line. The start was interesting, with a light following NE wind and tide, just helping to push everyone over. Getting pushed over would have been so easy! However, Phil was not about to make this mistake, indeed completely the opposite. At our 10 minute gun we were about 800m uptide and wind. So off went the engine and a slow sail / drift towards the line. In the event we were about 2 minutes late over the line.
After crossing through the start line melee (for the next race) the spinnaker was hoisted and away we went. With clear wind, we made up some ground. We managed to stay in the main thrust of the tide and keep clear air. One hairy moment when attempting to overtake, one of the boats on our starboard side was taking a more 'reaching' approach, which pushed us up towards the next boat. Eventually we managed to slow things down and get behind the stern of the 'reacher'. As we sailed off into clean air and good tide, we looked over our shoulder with amusement as the 'reacher' pushed half the fleet up the beach at Beaulieu.
Fairly straightforward spinnaker sailing down towards the Needles. An educational moment when the fastest boats of the fleet behind overtook us, using their downwind reaching techniques to perfection.
Rounding at the Needles was a bit of mayhem and fun. With this being the first corner, and boats converging from all over the place, some care was needed. We hit the Needles just about right on low tide. The RNLI were out marking the boiler of a ship wreck, which at about 4 ft depth needed avoiding. We went just outside. A number of boats sneaked inside. Add into all this a spinnaker drop on the turn just to make life interesting. After rounding the Needles, we beat out for only a little way, on port, before tacking back in to make the best of the tide and to try to be clear of other boats rounding. A couple of short tacks kept us close to the cliffs.
The downwind leg felt good, but it was very confusing to work out our real position.
After that, a change of helm, to Kevin and some slightly different tactics. The tide was due to shift from favouring an inshore approach to beat the old ebbing tide, to a more offshore one to pick up the new flood tide. With the majority of the fleet still favouring sailing under the cliffs, we decided that clearer wind offshore and the uncertainty on the tide might be a better (and easier) option. During the leg to St. Catherine's Point, we cross tacked numerous times with Grumpy Bear, who started in our group, but in class A (2 classes above us). She eventually finished 12th in her class.
St Catherine's to Ventnor seemed to be a slog. We were more inshore than a number of the other boats. After Ventnor, we were able to free off a bit (the wind had been changing all day).
With a early spinnaker preparation, we had a very clean spinnaker hoist at Bembridge Ledge with a race down to the forts. It got quite chaotic at the forts, and we furiously and impressively reached away on rounding the fort, almost straight up into Ryde sand! An instant gybe saw us reach back out towards the fleet at an impressive pace. All this from our instant lesson some hours before. However, even though our boat speed was high, what is not clear is how fast we were going downwind, just too many boats to keep tabs on.
The fleet followed the tide in over Motherbank, yet Phil and OMK being unconventional once again stayed out in clear air and water. We knew we were risking the tide for a bit, but the clear air and the room to reach a bit did make us feel better. With our under sized spinnaker in the main fleet we just felt overwhelmed and watched others sail past us when we were in the convoy.
We stayed clear of the fleet, until rejoining it at Castle Point. There, we seemed to come to a standstill. It was so frustrating with the finish apparently just 10 minutes away. We seemed to lose a lot of ground. Eventually we crossed the inshore line, being pushed over by a strong tide, some 9 hours 35 minutes and 18 seconds after our start gun.
A great feeling of elation, having completed the event, and not broken the boat or crew. We found some space to take the sails down, and then observed what was a memorable sight. There was a long line of spinnakers approaching the finish, with another line of, now sail less, yachts collecting their tankards from a barge, but the most memorable thing was looking around the Solent. These normally extremely busy waters were virtually deserted. It struck me, everyone who can, enters this race ...... it is special.
Results
ISC handicap : 1.011
Finishing time : 9:35:18
Corrected time : 9:41:38
| Fleet | Class | Position | Finishers |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISC Handicap Class | C | 27 | 62 |
| ISC Handicap Start Group | A to D | 122 | 279 |
| ISC Overall | A to M | 318 | 636 |