Tales of the Round the Island race - part 1

madforsailing's team took part in the event on a variety of boats. James Boyd sailed on Gartmore

Our start is at a very civilised 1000 and we hit the line alongside Mike Golding's catchily named Mike Golding Yacht Racing Open 60 (formerly Team Group 4 and to be renamed officially this Friday). On the island side of us are GBR Challenge's ACC yacht and three other America's Cup Class boats and a couple of old Whitbread 60s. GBR44 powers away pointing much much higher than Gartmore. A few minutes into the race we see Hoya High Voltage shred her Kevlar genoa and a moment late a squad of crew dispatched to the foredeck to try to retrieve the flayling pieces.

Mike seems to be much faster than us. He is sailing with Whitbread navigator Vincent Geake, Miranda Merron and Richard Tolkien in his crew. The boat has lost her Team Group 4 branding and has been fitted out with a new set of Taffeta-covered North 3DL sails (like the ones Ellen used in the Vendee Globe). On Gartmore we still have the Vendee Globe sails. And presumably his canting keel (the equivalent to our water ballast) is operational. Mike has more pace and is pointing higher and no amount of tweaking or crew concentration on our part is going to let us catch him. By the Needles, which we reach by 1130, he has done a horizon job on us.

Open 60s - and in particular Gartmore - do not sail particularly well upwind. They go fast, but don't point high and the boat is so light that the jib must be backed to pull around the bow. Without the three tons of water ballast on board Gartmore is as tender as hell, the deck often at around 45degrees. It is also very very beamy. On the weather rail it feels like being on a Maxi we are so high off the water. Talk includes local Cowes gossip, Josh's plans, life in France along with the normal subjects.

Rounding the Needles is miserable. It is grey and raining hard. The wind pipes up as predicted in Mike Broughton's series published on madforsailing this week. The swell has also picked up and it is beginning to get scarey. We pass two smaller yachts which have lost their rigs, one before the Needles and one after. But it is all worth it as with St Catherine's Point on our bow we are tearing along at around 14 knots, still under full main and Solent jib. We may be towards the back of our class, but we are cruising through the fleet as if they were standing still.

We round St Cat's at 1230 and the leg up to Bembridge is as enjoyable as the one to St Cat's was miserable. The sun comes out. We furl up the Solent jib and break out the Code 5 genniker. Our boat speed surges to 16 knots and it is Surfing USA time. Occasionally we take off down a wave and a strange cavitation noise is emitted by one of our two rudders. The boys with their toys aspect is surfacing in all of us now and on the particularly big surfs there are grins all round as Josh, perched precariously on the aft deck, foot jammed under the taught runner to keep himself on board, wrestles with the helm.




continued on page 3...