Round Britain and Ireland preview

Royal Western YC's doublehanded race with stops sets sail this Sunday

One of our favourite races – the Royal Western YC’s doublehanded Shetland Isles Round Britain and Ireland Race with stops on the sets sail from Plymouth on Sunday at 1200.

This year's race has a strong line-up - the entry list is full - the majority being monohulls but with eight multihulls.

Half the multihull fleet have been locally-built to Plymouth by Darren Newton’s company Dazcat. Newton himself is taking part on one of his latest creations, with Rupert Kidd, who campaigned the Merf Owen-designed trimaran Fiery Cross in the 1980s. According to Newton, Kidd’s serious last race was 15 years ago while, his own was the RORC’s Round Britain 10 years ago when they won line honours on Dazzler.

They are sailing Kidd’s new boat, Suenos, a Dazcat 1195, built from the same 12m moulds from which boats like Drama Queen, Born Slippy and Dazzle came from and is the latest to launch, having only touched the water for the first time three weeks ago.

“We’ve sailed it for four hours and then sailed it for 300 miles [the RB&I qualifier] and then another four hours and now we’re going Round Britain,” says Newton.

All the 12m Dazcats have differences. As it has evolved Newton says they have attempted to curb the weight spiral by reducing beam to 6.5m and rig height, to create a boat with an easily driven hull. The latest boat has a new coachroof and cockpit designed by another racing multihull ol’ timer and designer, Nic Bailey.

While Suenos is more of a cruising-orientated Dazcat, the performance is still up there and these catamarans seem able to offer that elusive mix of speed and comfort. “Yesterday we went out in 25 knots and were hull flying with two reefs and the genoa," states Newton. "They get up. They are not for newbie multihull sailors. We are going to be in a lot comfort - we have the TV, a diesel stove, microwave, and a 4KVA genset.”

For Newton reckons that the boat to watch in the multihull fleet is Simon Baker and Dan Fellows’ Drama Queen, which is the more racing orientated version of their boat, without the creature comforts. Baker and Fellows are 18ft skiff sailors and got the new boat last year after their previous 10m Dazcat, Paradox was all but written off in a collision. Paradox has since been repaired and competed in the RB&I with Will Claxton and Matt Gill on board.

Both Drama Queen and Suenos are fitted with new 16m tall carbon Selden masts and Banks D4 sails, but Newton reckons that Drama Queen weighs in fully laden at around 4.3 tonnes, around 0.5 tonner lighter than their boat.

Drama Queen will be up against Andrew Fennell and Simon Redding’s trimaran Strontium Dog. Fennell says of his boat: "Simon Redding and myself have been building the boat for five years to get it to the start line for the 2010 RBI. It is a one-off design - hulls built and designed in Finland, carbon beams designed by Shuttleworth and built by Pro-composites in Essex. The boat was built on Canvey Island. Simon did the Oryx Quest with Bullimore and has done a lot of sea miles. I've been a cruiser mostly since leaving the Merchant Navy in the early 90s."
 

If conditions are right [or wrong] Strontium Dog and the 12m Dazcats will also face stiff competition from Tim Wilson and Richard Haynes’ Dragonfly 35 Cold Fusion Reloaded and also the pokey Corsair 31 Freebird, sailed by Mike Wigmore and Grant Kelly.

Monohulls

Some confusion here. There is an entry called Roaring Forty, but it is not Michel Kleinjans’ famous boat he sailed round the world solo in the Portimao Global Ocean Race, but is a Class 40 (the first Owen Clarke design to come from Jaz Marine in South Africa, we believe). In addition there is Roaring Again, a full-on carbon fibre Open 40, which was built by Hans Plas, who also - and to add to the confusion - built Kleinjans’ boat. Embarrassingly, Roaring Again competed in the last RB&I race and was beaten by Kleinjans’ older sistership (which is now for sale – check out our classifieds).

In addition to the Open 40 Roaring Again, there are nine Class 40s competing in the RB&I and of these one of the favourites is likely to be Alex Bennett and Malcolm Dickinson aboard Fujifilm, one of five Owen Clarke-designed 40s on the RB&I start line. Bennett is an ex-Mini and Open 50 sailor and was (briefly) one of Pete Goss’ crew on the Team Phillips maxi-cat.

They will be up against Andrew Dawson and Jon McColl on the much-campaigned Spliff (possibly not the best name for a performance boat), Nico Budel, who lost his boat in the Portimao Global Ocean Race but has since acquired that race's winner, Boris Herrmann’s Akilaria Beluga Racer. Also likely to be on the pace will be Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire aboard Phesheya-Racing, as they have just completed in the Normandy Channel Race for the Class 40s. A man who knows his way around Britain is past winner Richard Tolkien who is campaigning his Humphreys Class 40 ORCA.

Among the Class 40 line-up is also Marco Nannini in his newly acquired Akilaria SunGard Front Arena, another ex-Portimao Global Race boat (previously it was Mowgli). Nannini is sailing with former Mini sailor Paul Peggs.

“It will be interesting because no one knows the pecking order,” says Peggs, who’s sailed in the last two RB&Is and is helping with thedailysail's punditry. Two other contenders aren’t taking part – including Miranda Merron and Peter Harding on the latter’s 40 Degrees and well known Dutch shorthanded sailor Sander Bakker who is the new owner of the Open 40 Syllogic – a bit long in the tooth now, but still one of the most radical in the class, originally featuring a canting rig and a special hi-tech autopilot system.

Outside of the Class 40s, the biggest boat in the monohull fleet is the Open 50 Wolfie’s Toy originally built for Royal Western YC shorthanded race stalwart, German Wolfgang Quix. However 17 years old now, the Class 40s and Open 40 should have a pace edge on her. “They were not very fast. We beat them in the JOD35,” says Peggs of how they got on in 2006.

“The Class 40s should lead the way around,” says Peggs. “If it is light at the start there is Jbellino, the J/122 is a good boat upwind. Jbellino must be up there for the IRC win.” Skippered by Rob Craigie this boat won Class 1 under IRC in last year’s OSTAR. On this occasion Craigie has sailing with him Charles Allen, best known in bygone years for his Team Woodbase Open 50 campaign.

While traditionally the RWYC’s shorthanded races have had their fleets divided into length bands and are then raced without handicap, in recent years IRC has been adopted. Given this, in addition to Jbellino, Peggs reckons that the J/105 Taika should be in with a good shout, for despite lurking towards the bottom of the size range she is being sailed by well known meteorologist (and ex Whitbread sailor and BT Global Challenge skipper) Chris Tibbs. “He is very well prepared, the boat is immaculate and he should know where to go. There’ll proably be a little trail of boats behind him!” says Peggs. Among his long list of achievements Tibbs also navigated the Open 60 Solune to a Round Britain monohull record, so knows the route.

Other well known types in the monohull fleet are Mary Falk and Jerry Freeman racing the former’s Q II, while Mini sailor Andrew Wood is sailing Streamline, one of three Koopmans VQ32s competing. Skipper of Streamline is Leslie Irvine from the Shetland Islands, who won his class four years ago.

Two Figaro 2s are racing. Having bailed from her campaign on the French Figaro circuit this year, Katie Miller is racing with Matthew Lingley on board bluQube and they will be up against the young duo Oliver Young and Sam Goodchild on Yogo Racing Izara.

Unlike the RORC’s equivalent, the RWYC’s Round Britian Race is doublehanded, goes on a clockwise rather than anti-clockwise lap of Britain and Ireland and has stopovers - as it has always had in its 44 year life span - in Crosshaven in southern Ireland, Barra in the outer Hebrides, Lerwick in the Shetlands and Lowestoft on the east coast.

As to the winners – the book is decidedly open.

Entry list: