Round the Island Race 2009

20th June 2009

One More Knot : 2nd in Class
Crew: Phil, Darrell, Barry, Glenn, Kev Q, Phil B

One More Knot competed in the JP Morgan Asset Management Round the Island Race 2009. This race is the largest yacht race in the world, this year with 1779 boats entered, of which 1567 finished. One More Knot and her crew have shown some consistency in their class results which have improved from 27th in the first race we ever competed in. We then had a 26th, followed by 4th, 5th, 9th, 6th and this year an excellent 2nd place in class to complete a sequence of 5 years in the top ten.

This year, competing in class 5A of the ISC fleet, we were in the 'fastest' class on the white flag start (there are lots of starts, each 10 minutes apart because of the number of boats). Our handicap placed us as the slowest boat within class 5A. Covieniently, for racing in class this meant that we were racing "on the water" against other boats in class.

Our preparation started on Thursday clearing the boat of 3 trollies of unneeded stuff. We probably could have got rid of more, but we made the big savings. Jeremy from North Sails delivered our brand new asymmetric for which we had also rigged some lines in anticipation. We had a full complement of crew on Thursday evening which allowed a prompt start for practice on Friday. A good days practice, which include a beat to Cowes, a clean big blue hoist in 18 knots. The first gybe was safe but slow, but a few more soon got the crew working together. Then we went for the asymmetric. After a bit of fiddling we managed 10 knots on flat water in 22 knots of breeze. It was very stable, but a bit difficult to get the speed advantage. The groove seemed quite narrow. Hopefully we will get better with more experience. After lunch, we went out for another uneventful round of practice. The crew were working well together.

This year the starts were slighty later than normal. Our class start was at 08:40. So this afforded us a not quite so mentally early departure from Haslar. After a motor up to the start we were just in time to see the first fleet go.

The original plan had been to start near the Cowes end of the line, but that seemed to go out of the window. It was very light airs, and we had made our way to the pin end of the line near the West Bramble cardinal.

Phil got caught out at 8:30, thinking we still had 20 minutes before our gun, but the crew quickly corrected him. We went into start mode and started our start line run, which really was a challenge to get the the boat drifting towards the line. Unusually for an RTI start, we were on the turn of the tide whereas normally we have 3 knots pushing us over.

With 2 minutes to go, we were looking good. But with only 1 minute to go Phil's bottle went as the fleet converged. We were too close to the front of the fleet for comfort. We didn't want our race to be over before it had started. We put performaed a big zig-zag to avoid being pushed over, but it also lost whatever speed we had. We were then consumed by the fleet as the gun went, leaving us struggling to get going again. Ironically, this then made us about a minute late over the line, and worse, back in amongst the sails unable to get a decent puff of wind.

The original tactics had been to favour the north side of the channel for better wind, or the south side for better tide. The south side looked horribly congested as the favourable tide slot was very narrow. The north side wasn't so badly congested, but we would need to tack on port across a number of starboard boats to get there.

So we wimped out and went straight up the middle! At least we were pointing the right way. We had expected a tiny amount of adverse tide in the middle, but fortunately it didn't appear to materialise (according to our instruments).

Midway between Gurnard and Newtown Creek we were back up with the leaders of our start. This gave us a bit more space and time to sail sweetly. We became aware of the shifts in the gusts off Newtown creak and started to tack on them. We performed some pretty tidy tacks with very little warning. As we got the hang of it, we drew clear of the bulk of the fleet. It was obvious that we were doing quite well at this stage, which was a relief after messing up the start. One More Knot was fighting back!

We passed Newtown Creek at 10am, after 1 hour 20 minutes. Both the breeze and favourable tide were picking up. We were able to continue on a long beat to pass close by Yarmouth, which is exacty where we wanted to be for the tide. A tack onto port at black rock kept us in the best tide so that we could beat down the north side of the needles channel.

The breeze had picked up and the crew were working very well to trim the sails. When we became overpressed, we eased the jib cars back, helping the boat stay on her feet. Flat and fast! Shortly after the Mid Shingles mark, we eased our course slight to head off for the lighthouse. Once again, we were aiming to cut inside the Varvassi wreck. The crew rigged the kite for a gybe set. This time as we approached goose rock (just under the light house) we had two yachts marginally in front and inside. They gave us a good marker for how to miss the rock. We rounded needles at 11:05. On rounding, we saw that our planned course was impeeded by a huge huge motor yacht at anchor. 99% of the fleet were going astern of her, largely because they were going outside the Varvassi. However, we were aware of the rock in scratchels bay and this whacking great boat in the way. Playing conservatively, we delayed the spinaker hoist until we knew we were clear. In hindsight, we should have hoisted earlier. We had about 16-18 knots of breeze at the lighthouse. It seemed less once we had rounded.

The timing of the race was such that the tide was now strongly against the fleet. Our plan had been to tuck into the island to avoid the worst of the tide and pick up the eddy once it got going. However, with a hint of north in the breeze, this was offset by being sheltered under the cliffs. We had a nervous 20 minutes while we persevered before gybing slightly more offshore. We had been monitoring the fleet around us and it wasn't looking good. Once we had picked up a bit better breeze, we gybed back parallel with the shore until we approached Freshwater. Then we gybed to run south east along the shoreline, passing Brooke ledges. We were going nicely. We overtook Ellissa (Portsmouth Parhelion competitor, Oceanis clipper 41.1) who were short handed and struggling to get their kite up. We were looking to stay in clean air but then ended up at the head of a train of yachts all running at about the same speed. Right behind us was an X332 that was marginally quicker so we were forced to defend our wind for a while. This took us slightly more offshore than we would have liked, but it kept us on our toes. We stayed in front until we decided to put in a gybe towards the shore to get us close to the Atherfield ledges. We passed more of our neighbours B&B, Dehler 36 SQ. We saw Tom Cunliffe onboard an appropriately magnificent classic yacht. For a long time we raced along side Gunshot (Moody S38). Their spinnaker was unmistakeable.

Eventually we got in Chale bay and picked up a very helpful south flowing eddy to get us down to St. Cats. The breeze had been picking up all the way and was now gusting to 25 knots. Our big blue kite is rated to 22 knots! We had hoped that the corner would give us slight more reachy angles, and possibly the opportunity to try the new asymmetric. However, once we got to St Cats, we needed to recalibrate. We rounded St Cats at 13:08. The tide was still running strongly against both the fleet and the wind. There were overfalls everywhere. In themselves, not a problem. However we also needed to gybe. The dilemma was running through the fleet. Gybing big kites in 25 knots and overfalls. The fast way was to gybe earlier, however the majority of the fleet continued hoping that the overfalls would ease giving them an easier gybe. We could see the difficulty on board those that were gybing.

On One More Knot, we took the bull by the horns and gybed early. We managed a respectable gybe so that we could stay inshore to try to avoid the worst of the tide. Thankfully, this left a clear space behind because most of the other had delayed their gybes. Some of the smaller (earlier starters) were inshore with us. So was a sunsail boat ... going from broach to broach charging around all over the place. Not an easy situation for a charter crew. We just wanted to stay clear. Once we had settled down, the next challenge was to make Dunnose point without needing to gybe back out. We had been surprised by how much the wind had swung around with us as we rounded St Cats.

Around us, the crew spotted Ellissa again, they had caught up but were now having fun attempting a gybe! We appeared to be doing a bit better than the boats further offshore. It turns out that Symphony (Elan 340, Roy Pearce & Parhelion competitor) was only 5 minutes behind us on the water despite being in a class that started 10 minutes after us. However, sadly they put their spinnaker pole through their kite. They resorted to their asymmetric for the rest of the race. However, these guys are pretty good with their spinnaker, and their difficulties give testament to the conditions. Phil on the bow saw another yacht 'blow' her spinnaker completely. Only the tapes were left.

We squeezed past Dunnose Point some 200-300m offshore, before starting the run back up to eastern corner of the course, Bembridge Ledge. Once again, the breeze turned with us as we rounded the headland. The angles weren't quite so deep, so sailing was a little more comforatable. This year, we had a very direct route but were generally to the west of the majority of the fleet.

We knew we were approaching Bembridge Ledge from the GPS, but we couldn't see the mark due to the number of boats. The wind had dropped significantly and the boat speed had fallen from over 8 knots to just 4 knots. As we made our final run in, we prepared to drop the kite. We were in a line of about 10 boats all approaching together. We spotted another Elan 333, Spirit of St George (who had started 10 minutes in front). With about 1/3rd of a mile to go, the wind failed completely. We immediately dropped our kite ... it was the first to hit the deck of those around us who all followed suit. Spirit of St Goerge appeared to be slower at dropping the kite, but got the final last puff which pushed them a boat length ahead. And then we drifted and bobbed around for 15 minutes. We were nowhere near the bouy. Phil was deperately trying to guess where the next puff was going to come from and have the opportunity to get out of the fleet. The new breeze appeared to be coming in from the north west, but it was so difficult in amongst all of the other sails. It was very easy to get disorientated in the fleet. People had fenders out and it appeared to be getting quite heated near the mark. We rounded outside the mark by some 160m. Once we popped out of the northern edge of the carnage we picked up a hint of breeze and managed to get going again.

Ideally, on the next leg up to Ryde sand, we would have been inshore, however our escape from the melee had left us on the wrong side of the fleet. We persevered and made the best of it until an opportunity to go in arose. We ended up well inshore of the post inside No Mans Land fort, and even called for water on another yacht when we had about 0.6m under the keel. We continued upto the back of Ryde Sand before slipping inside the Ryde Sand marker post. As we slipped past, the tide instruments were reading 1.2 knots of adverse tide.

The usual Ryde Sand melee was on form. There was plenty of shouting and lots of close proximity sailing. As we passed though the fleet on port, at one point ducking 6 starboard yachts, we thought better of going back in. So we tacked up the middle of the channel, with 1.4 knots of adverse tide. We enjoyed listening to the carnage on the edge of the bank!

The tide was picking up and the fleet inshore appeared to be thinning slightly. Our speed over ground had slowed to just 3 knots, so we tacked back inshore at Ryde pier. Immediately, our speed over the ground rose to 5 knots as we drag raced towards castle point. The crew were feeling good. We could see the majority of the fleet behind us. All of the boats around us had carbon and kevlar sails and we hadn't seen any white fleet flags for a while. This could be a good result. We just had to keep going until the finish.

Barry was looking cold on deck, so Phil got him to drive. The intention being all the way to the line. However, once again the wind played tricks on us. As we got under Castle Point, we drifted into a wind hole. Some of the larger yachts carried their momentum inside of us, probably assisted by a bit of breeze in the top of their sails. We struggled and Phil took the helm back from Barry, only to do no better. It was so so frustrating. We could see the finish. It took us 30 minutes to sail the last mile! We could hear the cannons going off for the class winners, so we knew we were in the mix, but we just couldn't get to the line.

As we approached the line we had to give way to another yacht. We had been trying to pinch inside the committee boat, but this meant that we had to put a final double tack in. As we crossed the line, at 18:56 2 cannons fired. On our half of the line there were 3 boats! We submitted our declaration by SMS and then rummaged around for any uneaten food and the odd can of beer that hadn't been cleared out. 5 minutes later, we get a phone call to say that we were first in class. Wow, well there were cannons as we crossed the line. Boy, were there some celebrations.

Another 5 minutes later, we had another phone call to say that we had been misinformed. The text had said 1st in class finished at 18:35, and that wasn't us. Deep deep sadness. But not so bad, we were second in class.

We finished at 18:56:21 giving us an elapsed time of 10:16:21, corrected to 10:18:12. We were 2nd (from 40) in class 5A, 9th (from 127) in the White Fleet group and 131st (from 825) in the ISC overall fleet. Melody, another Elan 333 won our class, with a 20 minute margin. We had a gap of 11 minutes over the 3rd place boat Entropy (Hunter Legend 376), with another 14 minutes to Selkie (Bavaria 37) at the head of the pack.

This year, the boat seemed to run much more slickly. The crew were very much more involved in making their own performance tweeks. There were good discussions about what to try and how to work together. Much less came from Phil at the helm and the whole thing was probably both faster and more enjoyable for everyone. The crew really came together on this one.

Back in Haslar, we were the first boat back to our pontoon. We hit the interweb to check out the results of the others boats that we knew. On the same pontoon the class results were: Symphony 4th; Aragorn 1st (well done Rob); White Cloud 14th; B & B 39th; All in all, a very happy pontoon!

Other boats that we were looking out for included Islay Mist 33rd; Ellissa 19th; Expectation 20th; Just In Time 7th