An early start with the crew in 20-30 knots of breeze. The target was Cowes for lunch. On the way, we had hoped to conduct a few gybes and tacks before hoisting the kite. With the strength of the wind, we elected to defer the kite and restrict ourselves to the brand new North Sails spectra #3 and 2 reefs in the main. We'd had the sail since last September, but she hadn't seen any race action yet. It was looking good for this weekend! After a brisk fetch to Cowes, we were early for our planned lunch stop, so we investigated the effect of the headland on the breeze. Under Egypt point, there was only 12-18 knots, which seemed a bit under powered compared to our experiences on the way. Away from the headland, the SSW wind returned to approximately 30 knots, where we practiced a couple of big wind gybes. They we very very tidy, hauling the main in first before going through the gybe.

Lunch beckoned, Phil and 1 other lucky crew member had a VIP lunch arranged at the Island Sailing Club. The crew chose Glenn as the victim. To get to lunch, all we had to do was park the boat. The first battle began with the "We don't do short stay" Cowes Yacht Haven on the VHF, despite having made a firm booking some 3 weeks earlier. It took a while but eventually we managed convince them to let us in. They really don't want short stay before the RTI race!

Having parked the One More Knot, Phil B said, you'd better look at the main ..... The sail was split just behind the first slide above the 2nd reef, the one we had been using. Just what we needed with the biggest race of the year the next day. A chat with the local sail loft did nothing to allay our fears. They couldn't repair it until after 3, and we had to be out of the marina by 2! Oh well, nothing else to do than go to lunch.

Phil and Glenn wandered off to the Island Sailing Club, leaving the others to fend for themselves. On arriving, whilst waiting for a drink Phil asked Mike Slade (ICAP Leopard) if they would be back for breakfast (we what else do you say to the bloke with the fastest monohull in the fleet?). The answer was a late breakfast maybe. It turned out that because the forecast wind was too much in the west, they wouldn't be able to fetch the Needles and consequently no chance of breaking their own record.

Both Phil and Glenn were interviewed by the press whilst we were supping our orange juices (nothing alcoholic ... this was serious stuff). Then it was the TV chat / presentation, with Dame Ellen MacArthur, Mike Slade and a few other with impressive boats, big and small.

Phil took a moment to chat with Dame Ellen MacArthur, and Norman the dog. Then it was more photos for the press with Olympic sailor Leigh McMillan (Tornado), before being first up at the BBQ and then returning to the marina for more training.

For the return trip, with the wind expected to be on the the beam or slight behind we went for full main. Well how else do you save a damaged sail? Put more up! At least we weren't pulling on the 2nd reef again.

With the sun out, a good breeze aft of the beam, it was time to get the A2, asymmetric out. Stashed in the snuffer for big wind, the perfect opportunity to get everyone up to speed before racing the next day.

25 knots of breeze and a recoded 8.5 knots boat speed on flat water. Not bad when hull speed is supposed to be only just over 7 knots!

After a very rapid trip back to Gosport, sail repairs were considered. Fortunately, one of the local sail lofts was still open an sold us a big patch of sticky sail cloth. It felt like we were about to do a "Blue Peter" repair, with sticky back plastic.

Back on board, there was some comedy ... to give ourselves a bit of space we ned to loosen the lazyjacks. So, helpfully, one line was untied, at which point the line zipped up into the air. Whilst trying catch the floating end, it zipped all the way upto the 2nd spreaders, so someone had to go up the mast to recover it. In the meantime, Phil queried why they hadn't just undone the other end lazyjacks from the cleat on the mast and lowered away ... duh.

The mainsail was duly stuck back together, we hoped it would last the race. The evening was spent watching weather forecasts .... sometimes twice because of Libby Greenhalgh's tight tee-shirt! We seemed to miss the foecast the first time around. Those olympic sailors sure can concentrate well. The forecast was for the wind to drop a bit, right into our cross over zone. Would it be #2 or #3? We would have to wait and see what happened in the morning. Meantime, it was an evening meal in the castle and early to bed ... big race tomorrow.

A 5am wake up call on Saturday started the proceedings. Everybody seemed to be ready to get out of bed without to much hassle. At 5:30am, Martin and Norman arrived with a crate full of bacon and sausage baguettes for breakfast.

At 5:45am, we untied the strings and crossed to the Camber to pickup Drew, our bowman. Electing to leave the main down whilst we motored out of the harbour and upto Gilkick into a WSW F5 looked like a good move. Some yachts had already hoisted their mains, but they were flogging badly. Then the heavens opened as a squall came through. In the rain, at Gilkicker, we hoisted the full main and aimed for Cowes, which was a tight fetch. The debate about what sail plan to use continued. We knew we wanted plenty of power at the start to get a clean get-away, but we also knew that it was forecast to pickup as we went down towards the Needles. Eventually we hatched our cunning plan, stick with the #3 and full main for the start. We could reef the main later if we needed to.

Prior to the start we loitered well back from the line, watching the fleet build as the earlier starts gathered and were released onto the course.

8:00am, we were under orders, or 10 minute warning. We approached the melee near the line. As anticipated, most boats approached the line on starboard, beam reaching along the line towards Cowes to prevent the tide from washing them over.

Staying out of trouble near the back we positioned ourselves for the final approach. Coming onto starboard and hardening up to join the sport, the GPS said 6 minutes to the line. Trouble was, only 4 minutes to go.

We looked for a gap and tacked onto port, ducking a number of boats as we dived into the thick of it. With 2 minutes to go, we tacked back onto starboard, underneath the bows of Vis, Kevan's (our navigator's) boat. Sailing with the pack, we hardened up toward the front row of the grid.

We are confident in our ability to point if we get clean air, so as we approached the line we tried to find a slot.

Watch the video!

Sailing too fast and likely get underneath the boat in front we slowed to make space. 20s before the start, we cranked everything in to come hard onto the wind before the rest of the fleet for a good start.

We concentrated on pointing for a couple of minutes to make space to tack to the favoured port tack. We inched ahead and climbed over the boats behind. About two minutes after the start, we had enough clearance and tacked onto port.

Once on port, we could really start to assess our position. Some of the boats to the south appeared to get a good start on port from Cowes. We were at the top of the fleet, neck and neck with the leaders. Big relief all around and time to get One More Knot up to speed.

Beating into the chop, out pointing those behind.

The pesky Contessas go well when it's windy!

We tried dipping on close to Gurnard to pick up the windshift. In hindsight, maybe we went a little too far and lost some of the tide. Same thing off Newtown Creek.

Video skimming astern of Selko (subsequently finished 5th in class 5B). Selko was rated 0.001 faster than One More Knot! So they give us 3.6 seconds per hour. So after about 45 minutes of racing, nothing to choose then.

Glenn's headcam view through a tack.

Glenn and Martin get the tack done without drama.

On the way down the 1st leg, the wind picked up so we put a reef in the main. We had a tricky time crossing through the fleet on port at the Hurst narrows, needing to duck a boat, then a smaller boat from an earlier starting fleet, before cheekily nipping through a tight gap in front of Alize (subsequently finished 4th in class 5B).

As we approached the Needles, we shook it out again. As usual when its windy, we couldn't see anyone flying spinnakers.

The Needles light house marks the end of the first leg. The race tracker showed that Jo who subsequently won our class, 5B rounded 6 minutes ahead of us.

It doesn't take long for us to decide to have a go with the asymmetric into Freshwater bay. It wasn't as windy as last year, but with 20-25 knots out the back most boats elected to keep the spinnakers in the bag.

With a slightly confused sea, we had a bit of trouble when the waves stacked up. It helped once we changed the routine and Phil B sat looking backwards calling the bigger ones.

After about 20 minutes, we dropped the kite. As we followed the island shoreline, trying to stay out of the adverse tide we had to come up on to the wind into a beam reach. With the reaching sheet on the jib, speeds were good. The sun had come out, but the camera was fogged.

St Cats lighthouse marks the end of the second leg, where we could bare away again and rehoist the aysmmetric. The race tracker showed that Jo rounded St Cats 11 minutes ahead of us after 4 hours of racing. So she had taken 5 minutes out of us on the 2nd leg.

With decent swell and wind and running very deep we had a bit of trouble keeping the spinnaker filled and pulling all the time. So, out came the pole and we pulled the tack to winward. The kite settled down and we started flying along. Once again, we maintained a very inshore track to Dunnose.

According to the race tracker, at Dunnose point, we had turned around the 11 minute deficit in to a 7 minute lead, in just 45 minutes. On the water, we recognised a few of the boats with us, all know to be fast. Happily we had seen plenty of boats that had started well ahead.

At Dunnose, we followed the wind bend around the island but elected not to gybe and continue on port. The course took us slight more offshore than most of the fleet. The plan was use our settled speed, gybe offshore and then come into Bembridge on starboard.

As we started to thing about gybing, we spotted Adelie Two, another boat we know to be fast, in class 5A (our start, differnt class) They had a monster spinnaker wrap and a man up the mast fixing it. Amazing they went on to win their class.

Meanwhile, we were about to go for own own gybe. We had the complication of having the asymmetric poled out. Having just seen Adelie Two's wrap, we thought we go for a low risk manouvre. So the plan was to douse the kite into the snuffer,gybe and re-arrange the pole and put it all back.

Its fair to say, we got our knickers ... and strings in a twist. Let's just say we call it "that gybe". Miraculously Andy managed to stay on board, he nearly fell over the bow!

Once we had gybed we had a fantastic blast into Bembridge ledge, which marks the end of the 3rd leg. As we approached on starboard, we had 4 boats overlapped on the inside on port. We still had the kite up, they were all under white sails. As we had to give them water, we dropped the kite and let them slide in front so that we could stay high up on the mark.

The race tracker should One More Knot leading class 5B, 3 minutes in front of Alize. Jo had picked up a minute on the leg, but was still 6 minutes behind.

As predicted, once we hardened up, One More Knot became a bit trickier to control. Beam reaching with the full main was difficult. A number of the yachts around were slipping in a reef. In hindsight, we probably should have too.

The fleet skimmed past the edge of the Seaview exclusion area, all trying to pick up the inshore eddy off Bembridge. Most of the fleet then further off shore to avoid an extended shoal. One More Knot followed Larissa (a consistently fast boat from class 5C) straight across the shoal. The depth alarm didn't approve!

At 8 knots over the ground and 0.3m below the keel, Phil suggested to Norman that a bit more main to heel the boat would be good. Up on the rail, the crew we finding things to hang onto ..... just in case.

Eventually, the depth started to increase and the crew started to breathe. But this is the Round the Island race, so straight onto the next hazard, Ryde Sand where many boats have gone aground. On our inside track we have clear air, flat water and a perfect line to go inside the post (that marks the corner of the sand). We know that there is room for one boat to go the inside the post. After thinking about it a few times, Phil elected to join the queue and go outside as no-one else was nipping up the inside. We done enough scary keel scraping for one day and we didn't want to chuck a good result. The race tracker showed Jo just 2 minutes behind.

Hard on the wind things became a little easier for a while. Ryde Sands created the usual trauma because of the denisty of tacking boats. Boats sailing in towards Ryde Sand on starboard had right of way over those sailing out into the tide on port. Of course, the sarboard boats soon run out of water and need to tack, becoming a give way boat. So whilst trying to stay out of the tide it is very easy to get trapped trying to give way and being forced to tack back into Ryde Sand. With Phil B callign the tactics, we make up our mind early and often look to duck a sequence of boats to stay out of trouble. We managed to get past Ryde Sand with just two pairs of tacks.

Over motherbank, the gusts became vicious, switching on and off violently. Poor Norman needed to sheet in progressively and then, when hit by a gust dump the main.

Our speed was dropping as we struggled. We were beam to beam with Jo, not knowing at the time that we were racing for the lead in our class.

Then we needed to duck behind another large boat. We saw her coming on starboard in plenty of time, we may have been able to sneak in front but elected to play safe and go astern. The call went out to ease the sheets to allow us to bare away. As One More Knot turned we were easily going behind when a big gust hit, flattening us. As we heel, so One More Knot started to round back up into wind uncontrollably. Our bow was no longer pointing astern but at our 'victim'. Everyone on both boats could see that this was going to be mighty close ........

It seemed like an age .... slow motion. But somehow, the stainless pulpit on our bow managed to miss the pushpit on their transom. We don't know how we missed, One More Knot was looking after herself, she must have breathed in.

It was the sign to give in struggling with the main, so we tacked onto starboard to drop a reef in. As soon as it was done, we tacked back onto port and our boat speed was improved. Our track up over motherbank was slightly inshore of Jo's, which kept us out of the tide more.

At Castle Point, the last corner, when the finish comes into view, the tracker shows Jo about 2 minutes ahead but further out into the tide. After last years nightmare of an experience approaching the finish we elected to go for our new strategy, keeping well inshore out of the tide and away from the other boats.

We were very happy with the approach, crossing the line 2 minutes 24 seconds behind class 5B winners Jo, 1 minute 56 seconds on corrected time. Considering Jo is a Sweden Yachts 42, in windy conditions we are very pleased with our result.

One More Knot finished:

• 2nd in Class 5B (of 51)
• 9th in group (our start of 136)
• 44th overall (of 822)

1647 boats entered, 246 boats retired and 29 were disqualifed or were over the line at the start.

The sail back to Gosport was a blast. A great sight seeing the remainder of the fleet battling thier way up the solent. The repair to the main had held up well enough, one side was still sticking well, the otherside had come adrift, but the damage didn't appear to be worse.

After a long day, a large meal in the Castle tavern was very welcome. A very rare event took place, main course and pudding were consumed!