Tales from the Round the Island Race - 3

John Greenland reports from a Sigma 33, while Alaistair Wood sailed the fourth fastest boat round

John Greenland reports from on board the Sigma 33 Heritage
When the phone call came at the start of the week to do the Round the Island Race I had to think long and hard about whether to accept. Every year I have listened to the stories of great racing, yet every year I have chosen to miss the world's largest yachting event. Why? Well up until recently I have been a fairly stereotypical student, and the thought of getting out of bed at five in the morning has been enough to put me off every time!

John Dallimore, owner of the Sigma 33 Heritage, had obviously expected this and quickly pointed out that it was a later start this year. With this, and the opportunity to helm the boat for the race, I decided to agree to his request.

We met at 0730 at Warsash and joined the world's longest queue to get the Southampton Echo - the local paper given out free at the end of the race. We were one of the first boats to cross the line at 0850, which gave us a fairly clear fetch to Yarmouth where we started to catch the tail-enders from the previous start.

By the Needles it felt like the six pairs of eyes on the boat just weren't enough to dodge the starboard (and often port) tack boats. We picked the best lane we could find to sail a straight line across to the Needles' layline.

At 1040, like the majority of boats around us, we decided to sail around the wreck. The big swell threw the boat around, actually making me work hard to steer the boat in a straight line. We sailed a fairly straight course to St. Catherine's Point, avoiding the temptation of sailing high to get a good view of the passing America's Cup, Open 60 and Whitbread 60 boats.

Having passed St. Cat's at 1300 we sailed a further mile and then popped the spinnaker. With only 18 knots of breeze we were still getting ten knots out of the Sigma as we surfed down the waves. By this point my arms were starting to ache, calls of "Are we nearly there yet?" were starting to ring round in my head. We fought hard to keep the boat upright and fast as we chased the other Sigma 33s which had started 10 minutes before us.

As John was checking the crew knew their jobs for the gybe at Bembridge Ledge an extra five knots of wind hit us. At this point we changed our minds and dropped the spinnaker, which turned out to be the right choice as by that stage we were a good 20 boat lengths past the buoy.

We tussled with a blue Contessa from Bembridge to the Fort to win the best line and wind for the final leg home. While the crew enjoyed the 1970s disco music John and I watched the boats underneath us, expecting one of the 50 boats we could see to tack and send many of the others in our direction. We were fortunate enough to get a clean line out of the mayhem.

Surviving the squall at Ryde we were re-united with the blue Contessa which we battled with for the remaining miles. Unfortunately the Contessa passed us as we approached Cowes, however the challenge had given us enough drive to fight to the finish and get a respectable sixth in class.

See page two for an account from on board the fourth fastest boat round the island on Saturday...