(Cowes, Isle of Wight, England)- The Royal Ocean Racing Club Season's
Points Championship continued this weekend with the Channel Race, the
tenth race of the series, and the last RORC race before the Rolex
Fastnet Race. Eighty-seven yachts started from the Royal Yacht Squadron
Line, around marks in the English Channel, with a Solent finish on a
130nm course.Despite a light and shifty forecast, the Royal Ocean Racing Club provided a cracking race for the magnificent fleet that had assembled Saturday morning, August 1st. Effectively, the course featured two windward leeward sections. The course took the fleet from the Squadron Line upwind into the Western Solent and up to the DZB Buoy off Anvil Point. The second leg was downwind, south of St Catherine's Point, past Owers and onto the Rampion Met Mast. The fleet then raced upwind, back to Owers, before a tight reach past Horse Sand Fort and a finish in the Eastern Solent at Darling Associates Buoy. During the race, the wind speed varied from zephyrs up to 20 knots, producing a tactical race, where sail choice, maneuvers, trimming and driving skills, were the keys to optimum performance. Class leaders and the overall lead changed hands on many occasions during the race with yachts enjoying skirmishes right through the fleet.
IRC 1 Class, David Ballantyne’s J/133 JINGS took an 8th in class and is hanging on to 3rd overall in the series, just a few points out of first overall!
IRC 2 Class, Elin Haf Davies’ J/120 NUNATAK was sailing only two-handed against fully-crewed boats and managed to place 2nd overall, just 18 minutes off the top of the podium on corrected time! More importantly NUNATAK is currently lying in 2nd overall in the season long series with the Fastnet Race looming as the big points getter for the entire top five in this class.
IRC 3 Class has a raft of J/105s and J/109s participating. Top dog again happened to be Nick Martin’s J/105 DIABLO-J, sailing two-handed against fully-crewed boats and succeeding admirably, first J team home and 4th in class. Next was Chris Palmer’s J/109 J-T’AIME, leading the J/109 class home again and taking 5th in IRC3. As a result, DIABLO-J and J-T’AIME currently sit 4th and 5th in the overall series standings, only 20 pts out of 3rd place (that’s a swing that can happen in one race!).
Eight J/109s were racing, including Palmer's J-T'AIME, the leading J/109 for the season. "The J\109s have really turned out this year and it has been a great competition; the boats are incredibly well-matched and it has also been lot of fun,” commented Chris Palmer. "More often than not, we meet up at the finish and share a few drinks and stories from the race, so it has been really friendly but serious at the same time. The J/109s are capable of getting on the podium and we are pushing each other very hard all the time, which is upping our game. We are sailing out of our socks this year and loving it. It is easier to get crew for RORC offshore races because they are so well organized and enjoyable and that is a big part of the battle when you are a crew of amateur sailors - we are having a blast."
Finally, in the separately scored IRC Two-handed class, the fleet saw Nick Martin’s J/105 DIABLO-J continue to excel during the season, taking a 5th in class and Elin Haf Davies’ J/120 NUNATAK took 7th in class. In the overall Two-handed Series, DIABLO-J is ranked 3rd and NUNATAK is ranked 6th. For more RORC Channel Race sailing information
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