One More Knot's 2007 Round the Island race report
23rd June 2007
One More Knot places 9th in class in the 2007 Round The Island Race
CREW: Phil Duff, Barry Duff, Darrell Duff, Phil Bailey, Julian Coates, Glenn Wilkinson, Martin Power
Picture courtesy of Eric Whitelaw, from Elissa; Old picture from 2005.
We were negligent this year and forgot about cameras!
The Round the Island race stands proudly on the world map of yacht racing. This year, almost 1800 yachts participated, the 2nd highest ever. A good breeze allowed a record number of finishers. For One More Knot, this is the biggest and most important race of the year.
Last year, One More Knot placed 5th in class and 4th the year before. The target was another top 5.
Phil and Glenn went to the boat on Thursday and threw off 2 trolley loads of cruising stuff. Possibly, we could have found more, but frankly, we got bored, and the pub was open. Tim from Peculiars chandlery came to dive on OMK and pronounced us as having "winning speed"!
On Friday, we had a partial complement, with Phil, Phil B, Darrell and Glenn on board. We went for a brisk sail in the morning, which, for the first time this year allowed us to experiment with the sails without being in race conditions. We got the kite up in 12-18 knots of breeze. Thankfully it all went uneventfully. It was an eye opener for Glenn, only his second time on board any yacht, and the first time was a fortnight ago! With the kite up, we had all of the bonus string around the boat. And with only four on board, Glenn was in at the deep end.
We went and tied up for lunch before doing a repeat performance in the afternoon. This time, we gybed the kite a few times as we knew that that was likely to come into play. We had also had a go at tweaking the jib sheet cars. Dropping the cars back an inch or so helped keep control and the boat on her feet in the stronger gusts. Once we were back in, we found that Gosport was quite busy! The remainder of the crew were on board by about 10pm. We never did quite get that really early night, before getting up at 4am! Martin and Barry ended up sleeping in the cockpit.
Once again we were in ISC class 5A, racing under a 'white' flag, starting at 06:20 (yawn). Our handicap, 1.003, put us as one of the slower boats in the "fastest" division of the start. This put us in with mostly larger boats, predominantly 36 to 41 footers. The handicap spread in the class was just 1%.
Other boats familiar to us in the same start group included Rhaspody (from PSC) and our good friend Richard T. on board Piraloucou which had sailed from France only the day before. We also shared the start with the Contessa 32 class, which included "Concerto" from the PSC Parhelion series. We were aware of some of the yachts we raced closely with last year, including "Blue Jay", a Dehler 34 who pipped us last year.
On the day, we had slightly better wind for the start than we expected. Initially a westerly F3 which backed and strengthened during the day.
Our race went very well. A more detailed log follows below. The highlights including :
- Our best ever RTI start, and mixing it on the initial beat with the leaders of the group.
- We also cut inside the Varvassi wreck. We hadn't seen anyone else go for it, so we led the way!
- It was spinnakers all the way to Bembridge ledge, including rounding St Cats within a stones throw of the lighthouse.
- A fast fetch up to forts at over 8 knots and less than a metre under the keel
- A tacking frenzy off Ryde Sands
- Setting the depth alarm off at Ryde pier
Our lowlight this year was cross tacking with the boat that eventually came 5th in class, only about 1.5nm from the finish line ... grrrr We were sooo close to another really really good result. Having said that, we need to be thankful for being in the top 10 and having done so well for so long.
The results
ISC handicap : 1.003
Finishing time : 15:15:43
Elapsed time : 8:55:43
Corrected time : 8:57:19
| Fleet | Class | Position | Finishers (Starters) |
| ISC Handicap Class | 5A | 9 | 49 (52) |
| ISC Handicap Start Group | 5A-5D | 28 | 173 (192) |
| ISC Overall | 4A-7D | 186 | 684 (904) |
Full race results : RTI 2007 (courtesy of the Island Sailing Club)
More info from the Island Sailing Club RTI website.
Race day log
New
Replay One More Knot's GPS track here
Also includes Rhapsody's track
This opens in a new window a uses javascript.
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (red)
Rhapsody's track (blue)
| 0400 | Phone alarms go off. Nobody stirs |
| 0405 | Phone alarms go off again. Reluctant heads pop out and slowly things come to life. Xpectation, X332 next door, is still in her berth and her start is 40 mins before ours. | 0420 | We leave the berth, just before Xpectation. Halsar is waking and there is a gently stream of yachts leaving. We join even more coming down Portsmouth harbour. In just 2 minutes we are clear of the harbour entrance and motoring 3 abreast to Cowes. The crew sort out a light breakfast and make everything ship shape below. |
| 0546 | We arrive in the south waiting zone and put up the main. There aren't that many yachts in the waiting area, but there are loads up by the start. |
| 0553 | With the wind being bang on westerly, we check what angle we can sail. There is tide is building and pushing over the line. Our check takes us up to the back of the fleet, so we tack and keep out of the way. |
| 0602 |
I had been thinking about how to approach the start for some time.
It was fairly obvious that a starboard start was required.
The big hazard was the 2.5 knot tide pushing everyone over the line.
The likelihood was that boats would broad reach down the line, stemming the tide until the gun went.
I wanted a better start!
I set my GPS up showing the route, and artificially making the first leg along the start line. By telling the GPS to go to the first end, it didn't delete the route marker. This let me see how we were doing against the start line in real time from the helm. Using the South Bramble bouy as a marker, we started a practice run towards the start. The buoy was miles behind where the rest of the fleet were loitering, so it wasn't busy. It turned out that we reckoned we could hit the start after about 4 mins 15 seconds from South Bramble. It would also put us slightly south of the centre of the line in good tide. Our conclusion, a good place to start from at the 5 minute gun. We could control our speed on the way in to avoid being over, and we would be able to hit the line pointing much higher than the broad reachers. |
| 0610 | Loitering over the bramble bank. Nerves are rising as gun goes for the Sunsail 37 fleet. Its our warning signal, 10 mins to go. The crew are called to order and the timer started. We look for a position that allows us to approach the South Bramble bouy in 5 minutes time. |
| 0615 |
At the South Bramble mark, 10 seconds early! The sheets are hardened.
The tide is a bit stronger and our track is higher than before, so we ease the sheets slightly.
We could make the line in 4 minutes if we needed to.
As it turns out, Piraloucou, Concerto and Rhapsody all saw us and were in the same vicinity. |
| 0619 |
Looking good. We are now approaching the edge of the broad reachers.
At least we have rights on them, but its not worth pushing your luck in this fleet with
200 yachts trying to get a good start!
Fortunately, we find a bit of a gap and the few yachts bearing down on us appear to be giving us room. Our speed is good and we are already pointing much higher. With 20 seconds to go, "crank it on boys" .... yehaa we're going for it now. We harden up and come across the transom of the last broad reacher to feature. |
| 0620 |
20 seconds late on the line but already on it with over 7 knots over the ground.
Our best ever start on the RTI.
I maintain its better to be 1 minute late than 1 second early in this race.
The penalty is about half an hour.
What is more, we now have clear air. We can see those around us still winching like crazy as they harden up. 
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (red)
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| 0623 | Time for our first tack near Egypt Point. It is already obvious that we are mixing it at the head of the fleet. There are maybe half a dozen yachts in front. There is plenty of space behind, so we are easily able to tack onto port without worrying about bad air and rights of way. Oh, and already we cross tacks with Bluejay, 4th in class last year. I notice she has North 3DL sails. Nice. |
| 0716 |
We pass Hamstead ledge buoy in good tide, making over 8 knots SOG, and most of it in the right direction.
This was about half way to Hurst, and we'd been racing for less than an hour.
The crew were all on the rail and the tacks were sweet.
There were a few boats around that we kept cross tacking with, including Bluejay.
There was a good feeling on board, we could see we were doing well.
We were definitely a contender for our group.
We had already caught some tail enders from the Sunsail fleet.
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (yellow)
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| 0757 |
Hurst already, 10.3nm upwind in 1 hour 37 mins. Not bad. 2-2.5 knots of tide helped!
Comparison of the GPS tracks suggest that Roy found slightly better speed by being in the middle at Hurst. Our track was about 400m further south and we lost the best part of a knot. |
| 0803 | We pass south of the Warden buoy. Once again we lost a bit of ground to Rhapsody. This time about 1.5 knots for about 2 minutes. After a quick tack into the deeper water, we make our final tack before the Needles. |
| 0823 |
Just 2 hours and 3 minutes after our start we round the Needles.
On the approach, we could see that the fleet were all leaving the Varvassi well to port.
Having already realised that we had got into some poorer tide and having lost a bit of ground to Bluejay,
Phil lines up for the inside track in an attempt to recover some distance.
The tide is still westerly, so if we cut inside we need to be close to Goose rock on the approach.
The Freshwater lifeboat anticipate our approach and tickle their way north through the channel. I assume that they put themselves near the rock. We rounded just outside them. The crew comment on how close the lighthouse is. There was only mild concern in their slightly squeaky voices! 
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (yellow)
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We deployed the pole and hoisted the kite without fuss in a bear away set.
As we round, the apparent wind disappeared and it all went very light.
We were now into an adverse tide and our SOG over the ground has fallen from 9 knots on the approach to the Needles to a meagre 4 or 5 knots.
On the face of it, we were now further inshore than any other yacht, so we should have less tide.
However, it appeared we had less wind too.
Now starts the tricky downwind leg.
We know we can lose out big time here with our small heavy spinnaker.
One we settle down, we notice that the fleet had spread out considerably. |
|
| 0835 |
Our first gybe of the day to get into the tidal eddy.
Some boats had managed to get inshore of us and appeared to be doing quite well. There were yachts everywhere! It was a bit difficult to tell who was who because the fleet had spread out. The Sunsail 37's were easy to recognise and we had now caught up with a big section of their fleet. Julian was sitting on the rail with a compass in hand monitoring the competition. |
| 0915 |
We had converged with the Brook ledges, so it was time to gybe back out again.
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (yellow)
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| 1049 |
St Cats!
And not even 11 o'clock. This was mucking up all my pre-race calculations. How could we be here so soon? Still, don't complain. |
| 1129 |
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (yellow)
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| 1130 | We rounded Dunnose point. The tide was now with us, although I don't think we fully appreciated it at the time. The wind felt light in the kite as we entered Sandown bar, however the speed over the ground was 7 or 8 knots. Roy's GPS track further offshore showed a more solid 8 knots. |
| 1137 | We have managed to catch up with a Sun Legend 41 that started 40 minutes ahead of us. Foolishly we ended up on her leeward side. As her spinnaker covered ours, we duly slowed to her pace. Phil bore away in an attempt to open the distance between the two boats for better air. It was slow and painful, so we thought that by hardening up we may be able to reach across under her bows. It nearly worked, we were in front but not by enough. |
| 1140 |
We started our attempt to wriggle clear all over again. We bore away, and this time really went for the reach.
OMK accelerated nicely and as we approached the larger boat,
it was going to be tight, but we felt our transom would be a good 10ft from her bows so we stuck with it.
It was working until the skip of the 41 had a panic attack.
Maybe he thought he was driving a 51!
He reaction was to harden up, which of course made her go faster.
OMK luffed harder in an attempt to pull clear.
Meanwhile the skipper of the larger boat luffed again thinking he was going to hit us.
Obviously this time it upset thier G&T's and they had to attend the spinnaker sheets.
We pulled away and they we left waving their arms furiously at us!
If you're the skip of that boat, then well done, you did keep clear. But actually if you'd have sent someone to the bow you would have seen that we were clear. You could have either held your course or dropped the helm slightly. Coming more onto the wind was always going to make it harder! On the other hand, if you were racing .... tough, you lost .... get a faster boat. |
| 1047 | A slight reprieve, our SOG comes up to a heady 2kts in the shallow water. However, it is clear that the tide has turned and is now increasing quickly. |
| 1158 | Having sailed into Sandown bay in an attempt to keep our boat speed up, we decided to gybe back toward the Bembridge ledge mark. The wind still seemed light, we had some tide underneath us taking the sting out of it. So once again, we sailed the angle, moving from the most inshore boat to one of the most offshore boats. During this leg we saw a lot of Heartbeat, GBR9908, an MG335, also on a white flag and would eventually finish 4th in class 5B. Other white fleet boats in our proximity were Contessa Catherine, CO682 and Polar Star, 596, both Contessa 32's who finished 3rd and 4th respectively in their class. |
| 1230 |
The Bembridge Ledge chaos came into view.
It had taken a while to work out exactly where the mark was.
Once we'd spotted it, it was unmistakeable.
We performed our final gybe 0.7nm from the mark. We were quite surprised when we had difficulty carry the kite to the mark. We had overstood it marginally .... obvisouly with some helo from the tide! We elected to drop early, well before the mark and carry on under white sails |
| 1236 |
As we approached the mark under white sails, we had more manouvrablility and options than those trying to drop their spinnakers.
However, we get on the leeward side of a Moody 54 mid drop.
She blankets us and holds us away from the mark.
Our options had vanished!
Pooh. She took an age to turn and get going. All we could do is watch the fleet go high for the shallower water to try to cheat the tide. On the basis of a fairly short leg and good angles, Phil elected to drop off the main track by 5 boat lengths looking for cleaner air. |
| 1249 | Eventually, an opportunity arose as we approached St Helen's fort to change lanes. We hardened up and managed to push our way up to being the windward boat in the shallowest water. |
| 1253 | At St Helen's fort, we were now on the inside track. We had boat speed of 8.5 knots, with SOG showing about 6.5-7 knots. Only 2nm before we needed to be aware of the shallows inside No Mans Land Fort. It was exillerating sailing, with a line of yachts 3 abreast and only a boat lenght apart. We had less than a metre under the keel. |
| 1307 | We call for water on one of the sunsail boats. She obliges nicely and we can turn to avoid running up the impending shoal. |
| 1317 |
The ride post. A couple of yachts dare to cut inside. We skim past just on the outside and the crew sheet in hard. Everything we can save in pointing here would save us big time. We made the mistake in previous RTI's of getting to far out into the foul tide. |
| 1322 |
Our first tack in this section.
The GPS plot shows vividly the impact of the tide.
We continue to short tack up past Ryde sand and are generally quite lucky when we are on port.
As usual, boats on starboard are the ones driving up the beach.
The ones escaping are on port .... why does it always do that on the RTI?
We witnessed an obligatory boat aground on the sands. 
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (red)
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| 1339 | Approaching Ryde pier, and pinching like mad on the making tack. Eventually we run out of water and put in a couple of short tacks to take us past the pier. We were and inhore and anyone. We were sailing in close proximity to Sunsail 07. |
| 1354 |
Weee Weee Weee Weee Weee Weee Weee
The depth sounder went off just past Ryde pier. We throw in the tack and as we go around the depth drops to just 0.3m below the keel. Phil comments to the crew that now we've set the alarm off we are "officially racing". |
| 1405 | Our GPS track went as wobble as hell. Phil was complaining that the boat didn't feel quite right. We couldn't point and we felt slow. So as usually, brotherly love took over and Phil and Darrell had the usual row! The rest of the crew kept their heads down. 2 minutes later it was all over and we we doing our best again, but things still didn't feel fast. |
| 1422 | We found some bonus breeze coming out of Wooton Creek. It also seemed to have a favourable shift. In order to stay in if for longer, we were able to crack the sheet an inch and take all the speed we could toward Castle point. Julian is on the rail looking at the inshore boats. At first he says we appear to be making on them. But then he says we're loosing. |
| 1442 |
We had just sailed off Motherbank into slightly deeper water.
We cross tacked with Larissa (eventually to finish 5th in our class).
We were just 1.6nm from the finish. |
| Then we threw it all away. Inshore, it looked as though the fleet was struggling for breeze under the wooded coatline. We were further out, but now in the deeper water of the main channel. We had reasonable wind, but as we were to find out the hard way, much more adverse tide. We were still struggling to get the boat pointing nicely. Had we hooked up something underwater? | |
| 1454 |
We tacked at the Ryde middle buoy.
We were compoundind our mistake by staying in the deeper water.
Phil's justification was that we had better wind.
One More Knot's 2007 RTI Race GPS log (red)
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| 1509 | We put our last deep water tack in and head towards the finish. We were nice to the Zenith, Contessa 32, who we expected to call for water on us. We were right on her transom as we sailed towards the Shrape mud bank. We dropped under her transom, giving her room to tack, but she hung in there for quite a while. Eventually we both tacked. We couldn't point as high, so we need yet another short tack pair to get across the line. |
| 15:15:43 |
We crossed the line, some 51 seconds behind Zenith.
We raised a cheer on board to celibrate our accomplishment. |
| Then it was the post race proceedures. Putting the sails away in amongst a fleet of other trying to do the same. Avoiding getting tangled up with the mooring buoys in the 2+ knots of tide. And then joining the queue to for the barge to make our declaration, which is always scary! | |
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This year we knew we had done really well and were in with a shout all the way up to Ryde pier.
However, we weren't sure what happened next.
We knew we had lost out a bit to some of the boats that we around us near the pier.
Motoring back, the wind had picked up so we put the jib out to help us back to Haslar.
The remainder of the fleet were beatig hard. By now, smaller headsails and reefs were the order of the day.
We recorded 27 knots true at Gilkicker point on the way back to Haslar.
Then the phone calls and texts started! It turned out that we were 9th in class, 28th in the white fleet group and 186th in the ISC fleet(of 904 yachts). We were 17 minutes behind the leader in our class, which turned out to be another Elan 333. Larissa, who we crossed tacks with just half an hour earlier finished nearly 6 miutes ahead to take 5th in class. Gutting ..... The boats we were sailing with ar Ryde Sands included Heartbeat eventually finished 12 minutes in front of us, and Sunsail 07 finised 7 minutes in front. We didn't know whether to be happy for another top 10 finish, or annoyed that we let a 5th place get away. |