One More Knot's 2005 Round the Island race report
18th June 2005
One More Knot claims 4th in class
CREW: Phil Duff, Kevin Swann, Barry Duff, Darrell Duff, Phil Bailey, Julian Coates, Paul Simmons
Picture courtesy of Eric Whitelaw, from Elissa
The Round the Island race is a classic race with over 1600 entries. For One More Knot, this was the "BIG ONE".
Over the last couple of years, OMK has placed just ahead of the half way point. With an updated specification, including folding prop and new sails from North, there were high hopes of an improvement from the previous years results.
The crew steadily improving, with a highly respectable 3rd in the Portsmouth Parhelion spring series earlier in the year. A fortnight before the RTI race, the majority of the crew were back on board for a refresher, although intentions of a "practice lap" around the island were scuppered by F6 & F7 winds.
This year saw a new handicap system for the ISC class in the RTI, so it was a bit of a lottery as to how favourable the handicap would be. OMK's new TCF under the ISC handicap was 1.003. This put us in with mostly larger boats, predominantly 36 to 41 footers. We were very much at the baby end of the division. The handicap spread in the division was just 1%. However, in our favour, we were now in the ISC B fleet, which starts considerably after the ISC A fleet that we had been in on previous years. It seems the tides favour later starters.
To get One More Knot to sail closer to handicap the crew went through the boat from end to end to strip out the cruising gear. An unbelievable 4 trolley loads of "stuff" came out of the boat, letting her float about 1.5" - 2" higher in the water. Putting the crew of 7 back on board didn't get back to the original waterline!
Race day dawned, and true to the forecasts there was no wind. The crew of One More Knot made their way to the start, which was subsequently delayed by an hour and 10 minutes. The initial part of the race was performed in very light south easterly winds, F0 to F2. This meant that it was spinnakers straight from the start. The crew of One More Knot were highly encouraged during the first section as we sailed up to the front line of our start fleet. During the first leg, the wind became variable (another word for no wind at all!) and then filled in more strongly from the south, blowing a good F3-F4. With a beat and close reach all the way from Needles to Bembridge ledge in a mixture of overcast sky and sunshine, spirits were high as we could see a good number of boats from the fleets that started in front of us. Unusually, this year there seemed to be a lot of space, probably because a lot of boats went further offshore than normal. In a fleet of this size, there is always a boat ahead to race. We seemed to be able to move up through the fleet, apart from the odd boat that was obviously being sailed well. At one point, we had a battle with Vigilant, who eventually ranked 2nd overall. In the later part of the race, the wind eased again, with yet another spinnaker race to the line. The feeling on board at the finish was that we had "done ok", but this escalated to full on elation and excitement when phone calls were received suggesting that we were 4th in class.
The results
ISC handicap : 1.003
Finishing time : 19:28:17
Corrected time : 10:00:05
| Fleet | Class | Position | Finishers |
| ISC Handicap Class | E | 4 | 40 |
| ISC Handicap Start Group | E to H | 31 | 183 |
| ISC Overall | A to Q | 116 | 560 |
Full race results : RTI 2005 (courtesy of the Island Sailing Club)
More info from the Island Sailing Club RTI website
Race day log
One More Knot's 2005 RTI Race GPS log
| 0515 | Alarm clocks on board sound. The crew slowly awake and start sorting out. |
| 0550 | Moorings slipped. |
| 0610 | Motoring up the Swashway, when Eric on his boat Elissa call the crew to a photo call. Darrell seems to have jumped ship! |
| 0630 | Remembered to turn on the radio. Greeted by a message from the Island Sailing Club stating that the start has been postponed (lack of wind) |
| 0730 | Plot the outer end of the line on the GPS units. The out end seemed surprisingly close to the West Bramble cardinal. The committee boat near the ODM confirmed that they did not consider themselves to be on the line. |
| 0740 | First fleet starts, an hour late! The first boat took about 3 minutes to cross the line in the very light winds. |
| 0840 | Another 10 minute postponement, due to a container ship |
| 0910 | Up with the main. |
| 0920 | Our 10 minute gun |
| 0926 | Engine off, still under the main alone, about 0.28nm (500m) from the line. We would prefer to be late than early. Especially given the strong tide and light winds. Making a port run at the ODM end of the line. |
| 0929 | One minute gun ... the tension rises. The kite is ready to be launched. We seem to have some space so the pole is set. |
| 0930 | Our start gun. We're off. Actually, we were about 100m short of the line, allowing a number of boats to get a better start. However 4 had tried too hard, with 3 being classified as OCS and the other as DSQ. |
| 0931 | We crossed the start line. |
| A large part of the fleet had elected to start at the Cowes end of the line, as is traditional due to the normally stronger tide off the green. However, due to the delays and light SE wind we had elected to start about 3/4 of the way to the ODM to pick up the ever increasing tide and get a bigger angle on the wind. | |
| 1000 | We used our downwind gybing technique to work through our fleet. After 30mins of racing, we were in Thorness bay (just past Gurnard ledge). We had popped up onto the front line of our fleet. It was a good feeling to have worked our way up to the group leaders, especially knowing that we gave away a minute at the start. Where possible, most of the crew were on the foredeck to keep the boat trimmed. |
| We skirted across the stern of eventually division winners, Djambo. Our gybing antics appeared to amuse them as they could match our pace without the effort. The price we pay for only having a heavy, small reaching kite! | |
| 1009 | We spot a big wind hole and boat park just off Newtown Creek and gybe out into the main tide again. We keep going for a bit, staying in the middle of the channel. We appear to get past. |
| 1011 | But .... then we get stuck. At least we were in the middle of the channel with 3kts of tide. |
| 1020 | Some of the boats in shore appear to get going. We were still stuck ... frustrating. |
| 1034 | We get a hint of a breeze and get moving again. Slowly at first but then making 5 knots SOG. |
| 1051 | The boats a few hundred metres ahead were changing to white sails. The wind died and we were the first of our bunch to drop the kite. Eventually the light breeze filled from the south, which allowed us creep along with the tide. We took an advantage by being ready for the new breeze with white sails. |
| 1135 | Approaching Hurst Point. The breeze once again died. Looking ahead we could see that the boats were sailing nicely under white sails. A close encounter with another Elan, this time a 295. We both drifted in the tide through the narrows with barely 3m between us and 0 boat speed! Eventually the breeze filled in once again from the south. This time quite forcefully compared to the earlier antics, probably a good F3 or F4! |
| On a close reach down to the Needles, we found ourselves in the middle of the channel. This time sailing with the tide and at a decent speed. We charged down to the Needles with 8-10 knots SOG. | |
| 1205 | Needles rounded! Not quite as tight last year, but none the less a decent rounding. Maybe being out a bit cost us a few minutes. This year, we heeded last years lesson of going back in too soon. We hardened up as much as possible and stayed on port for a while. Just dipping behind the stern of a couple of boats. |
| 1218 | We put in our first tack. Our track showed that we initially had a good kick from from the tidal eddy and wind, but as we went further the advantage faded rapidly. A number of other boats continued offshore to join an established fleet already out there. |
| We then beat up the island shore, staying north of the rhumb line to St Catherines Point. 18 tacks to St Cats! On the way we quizzed ourselves about inshore / offshore and why there were so many smaller boats inshore? (later we discovered they started an hour earlier!) | |
| 1521 | South of St Cats .... why does that leg always seem like such a long way? The tide had definitely turned and was pushing us strong east, with over 8 knots SOG ... beating! At least the wind had been building. with a good 16 - 20 knots at St Cats (partly wind against tide). We observed the occasional reefed main on board other boats, however our new sails stood up well. Although we did notice we couldn't point quite as high as some. |
| 1609 | Dunnose Point. The wind and the tide start changing, but what to? A discussion followed, and we elected to stay inshore for a bit. |
| 1620 | On a starboard tack and the COG shows a severe header. So a tack is thrown in. We race against Mr Tinkles (Div G) for a while. She had done better than us to this point to match us on the water, but we were to beat her by some 23 minutes by the time we were back at Cowes. |
| 1638 | After a port tack to the outside (and windward) of the fleet we are almost the furthest out boat. We had held onto the tack a few minutes longer than most as the COG vector showed us making over 5.8 knots to windward. After we tacked, we were then able to crack the sheets a little for a 6nm close reach down to the Bembridge Ledge mark. The GPS shows well over 7 knots for the leg. |
| 1728 | Bembridge Ledge. As we bore away, the kite was hoisted, however it didn't come out the bag sweetly. The kite candled and took about a minute to sort out. A post mortem later identified that we had followed our normal packing procedure, but for some reason there was a general bad feeling about how the body of the kite lay in the bag! |
| A lot of the fleet went inshore en route to the Ryde Sand, however we decided to straight line it as going inshore would have meant more distance and deeper running. We were able to catch, but unable to pass, Vigilant, who eventually came second overall in the ISC fleet. Obviously there room for improvement, she started after us! | |
| 1803 | No Mans Land fort. It seemed quite busy on the inside, and spotting the Ryde Sand's post was impossible from our position so we just made the best of the clear air, staying slightly to windward of the main line of the fleet. |
| 1812 | Off Ryde Sand, and the running isn't working for us so we try gybing out into the main channel. Big mistake! There is still a foul tide and so we loose out to Vigilant. We had to try something as the wind eased considerably! |
| 1818 | We gybe back in from the foul tide ... lesson learnt. We had lost some ground to Vigilant. |
| 1846 | We went way inshore at Ryde, having crossed from the outside of the fleet to the inside. Back to our downwind gybing technique to keep the boat moving. At least the tide in here was favourable. The GPS track shows about 6 knots SOG. |
| With our track showing a few gybes through Ryde roads, Mother Bank and Osborne Bay we had a dice with a couple of boats, Wipe Out and Magus Tao. They seemed to be having their own race, be when we swept across their stern they seemed to wakeup to our tactics and followed us. We managed to sail a bit deeper and then gybe away into clean air. Little did we realise that although both boats were in the same start fleet, this was a real race! Magus Tao had a TCF just 0.001 higher than One More Knot. Wipe Out was also under a "white" fleet flag, (ISC B), but to her credit was in a lower division, so both OMK and Magus Tao gave away time to her. | |
| 1920 | Castle Turret and the finish comes into sight. One More Knot was required to finish on the Cowes side of the line. At least we were on the island side of the fleet. No probs then ... at least not until Batfish (another Elan 333) came storming across our stern on port, to gybe onto starboard and tuck just inside of us (still on port). Phil on the helm realised that we might get pushed out to the wrong line and did a quick negotiation with the skip of Batfish. OMK was allowed to cross the bows of Batfish, to be screened by their kite for a moment, but at least we then had a clear run for the line. |
| A race to the line, with Magus Tao close on our heels, with an overlap to windward at times. We pushed hard and raised our course a little aiming closer to the windward (Island) end of the line to make sure that we kept clean air. Little did we know that we would only beat Magus Tao by 18 seconds on the water, and 54 seconds corrected ... after 10 hours of racing. | |
| 1928 | The finish. Well done all, but no real idea at the time how we had done. |
| 1939 | Join the queue to declare and pick up the goody bag. This needed a quick drop of the main. |
| 1957 | Got the goody bag ..... back to Gosport with Paul at the helm |
| Berit phoned to announce the current rankings from the web ... 4th in class, 15th in group (later to drop to 31st) and 65th (later to drop to 116th). overall. | |
| Back to Halsar for some beer and food ... oh and to talk about the days exploits. To say we were chuffed with 4th would be a serious understatement! | |
| Once again, on the way back it was striking how quiet the Solent was ... apart from the steady stream of yachts making their way around Ryde Sand and up to the finish at Cowes. |