Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Coors Light Island Double

sailboat sailing around Needles, Isle of Wight, England

J/133 JAMMY DODGER Leads Fleet Home

(Southampton, England)- It's 30 years since Neil Cox of Solent Rigging organised the first Double Handed racing at the Royal Southampton Yacht Club. Since then the series has continued without a break and grown in popularity.  And, it has to be one of the most challenging of the famous "around island" races anywhere in the world, especially shorthanded.

The tides for this year's Coors light Island Double were more suited to the east-about circumnavigation of the Island instead of the more usual west-about course - If only the boats had enough wind to get over the line. The forecast, and the actual conditions were very light but the Race Committee made the right call by getting the boats away, some of whom were swept OCS by the tide. The fleet of over 100 boats flying spinnakers of all descriptions made a great sight as they ran, slowly, down towards the forts in the bright morning sunshine.

All tactics were used to get down to Bembridge with some boats following the mainland shore and taking a long, wide sweep east and others hugging the Island shore and sometimes getting caught in wind holes from where they watched others further north overtake them.

Once at Bembbridge the very light wind slowly picked up but immediately became so flukey that it was hard to know which sail to hoist or which tack to take. Eventually the conditions settled down with the earlier boats taking full advantage of the favourable tide to make the Needles in two tacks. The later boats were robbed of that option and had to take the inshore route but at least then found the tide in their favour in the Needles Channel.

The western Solent delivered winds that hadn't appeared on any of Friday's forecasts and strengthened the nearer the boats got to the finish where the Race Committee were on station to the south-east of Williams Shipping buoy, setting a line that was a near straight run from Sconce. From there the main question then became, if we raise the kite will we get it down again? The hardy souls that took that risk had an exhilarating, surfing run to line.

Here is Neil Martin's and Deb Fish's report from the J/133 JAMMY DODGER:  "With just over an hour of flood tide left, the race committee sent the fleet East down the Solent for a clockwise circumnavigation. Neil got us a good start at the Squadron end of the line, where we could stem the lighter tide until it was time to turn for the line. Seconds before the start we hoisted the light runner and set off in the forecast light NWly winds. We gybed all down the Solent, generally staying away from the lighter winds on the Island shore and gybing between mid channel and the mainland. The patchy wind became a bit steadier and we found ourselves leading the fleet by some margin by the time we reached the forts. We crept inside No Mans Land fort, deep inshore to get out of the foul tide, and the wind died before shifting dramatically. Fortunately the fleet of Redwings racing off Bembridge allowed Neil to anticipate the new wind, and we soon had the kite down and were beating to Bembridge Ledge.

The wind soon shifted to the SW and built to 17 knots, and we tacked along the middle of the course to Dunnose, trying to keep out of the bays and in the stronger tide, but stay right in anticipation of the wind veering. (At least, we think it was stronger tide - having tossed Winning Tides overboard in the spinnaker drop at Bembridge, we were relying on the tide atlases in the Almanac...) By St Cats the wind had veered and we could just lay the Needles on port tack. Visibility was amazing - halfway between St Cats and the Needles, both looked just a couple of miles away, and we could see Anvil Point and Portland Bill really clearly. The sea had built with wind over tide, so I was in for a soaking on the bow to clip the spinnaker on. I managed to cut my finger, covering the deck with blood - unbelievable how such a tiny cut can cause so much mess. We passed the wreck, bore away and hoisted the kite in 20 knots of breeze. Gybing the light runner on the J133 down the Needles Channel then the Solent double-handed was hard work, with the boat on the edge, but we managed to avoid wraps and stay in control somehow. We still led the fleet around the Needles, but the two multihulls that had been drawing ever closer finally overtook us in the Needles channel.

Conscious of stemming the strong tide in the middle of the Solent, we gybed in to the mainland shore, but I had failed to notice the shallow waters further along our gybe out on the small screen on the hand-held chart plotter and we held our breath as the depth decreased to 0.0m and we touched the bottom with full main and spinnaker up doing 10 knots. Mercifully we got through the shallow patch and out of the other side.

The final drama was finding the finish buoy just upwind of the Bramble bank and getting the kite down quickly (listening at the race committee's urgent calls to one of the following boats to beware the Bramble bank!)."

Besides winning elapsed time overall, JAMMY DODGER also managed to finish fourth in Class 1 on corrected time behind the two well-sailed J/109s.  Finishing second was the J/109 JAGERBOMB sailed by the team of Paul and Mark Griffiths, just missing first place by 52 seconds on corrected time!  Ouch, now how many places were there on the race you could make up 52 seconds?  Just off their pace was the J/109 JANGADA TOO, well-sailed by the team of Richard Palmer and Jeremy Waitt to get third in class.  Finishing ninth was the OSTAR class winner (and nearly overall), the J/122 JBELLINO, ably sailed by experienced offshore sailing veteran Rob Craigie with Charles Allen as part of his team.  For more Island Double sailing informationSailing Photo Credit- Paul Wyeth